Configuration of a modular plant

A method of configuring a modular plant, the method comprising, in a plant engineering phase:

• receiving a user definition for the modular plant as a target system, the definition identifying modules to be integrated into the modular plant according to the user definition, at least one the module of the modules being associated with a controller-agnostic configuration file specifying parameters for the at least one module that are not specific to any target system;
• and
• automatically binding controller software instantiated according to the controller-agnostic configuration file to a hardware controller of the at least one module of the target system, the binding comprising automatically adapting the controller software to the target system according to the user definition.

A data structure, comprising:

• a control software configuration for a module of a modular plant, the control software configuration specifying parameters for the module that are not specific to any target system,
• wherein the data structure is formatted as a controller-agnostic configuration file for subsequent binding of controller software instantiated according to the controller-agnostic configuration file to a hardware controller of the module when the module is integrated into a target system during a plant engineering phase.