A system and method provides an impact list of affecting equipment elements that affect an industrial sub-process. The method comprises the steps of selecting, in a topology model, the sub-process, wherein the sub-process is an equipment element that is a part of an industrial plant or process, and wherein the topology model is a graph, whose nodes represent equipment elements and whose edges represent interconnections between the equipment elements; traversing the nodes of the topology model, wherein the traversing starts from the selected sub-process and uses a traversing strategy; and for each of the at least one equipment elements, if the equipment element affects the industrial sub-process by an affecting degree greater than a first predefined affecting degree, adding the equipment element to the impact list of affecting equipment elements.