An automation component and method for indirect addressing by a program of an industrial automation component, wherein to accesses a number of cells in the memory, an associated address is ascertained at runtime of the program, such that during writing of the program, an association between a structure and the addresses is created and stored, where at the runtime, for accessing the memory, a relevant element of the structure is ascertained in a first step, the associated address is read from the stored association in a second step, and the memory is accessed via the address in a third step.