Automation technology facilities are used for automating industrial processes such as the control of conveyor belts. A high-level control device with a logical model of the plant stored in the control device is disclosed. Simulation models and control programs are generated by the control device. The generated control programs have special data blocks which contain the parameters that are to be optimized by the simulation. The generated simulation models generate the parameters as result values of the simulation evaluation algorithms and supply the values in an automated manner to the special data blocks of the generated control programs.