For the consistent provision of configuration data in an industrial automation system comprising a plurality of networked control units, components of a service are combined by a local service configuration unit using a standard configuration interface to form a service. Services are configured by configuration data and activated, where the configuration data comprise information relating to the attribution of services to control units and dependencies between services. The configuration data are accepted from a control and monitoring unit in the industrial automation system by a system configuration service, checked and transmitted to destination control units. The transmitted configuration data are checked by local service configuration units associated with the destination control units for changes in comparison with previously used configuration data. The local service configuration units use detected changes in the configuration data to ascertain lists of operations for performing configuration changes, where the lists are optimized to minimize service downtimes.