receiving data identifying a required module type to be assembled into the modular plant as part of a module pipeline comprising one or more modules, the one or more modules being wrapped by a semantic description and collected usage data, the data including a precondition and a postcondition for the module pipeline;

executing an optimization algorithm to select, from a plurality of modules having the required module type and based on the data, a module for inclusion in the module pipeline on a basis of one or more predetermined optimization criteria and module attributes of the module; and

determining a sequence of modules included in the module pipeline to match the precondition and the postcondition of the module pipeline based on input attributes and output attributes of each module of the one or more modules.