Disclosed is a method for monitoring and / or controlling a
chemical plant (12) with multiple assets via a
distributed computing system (10) with more than two deployment
layers (14, 16, 30, 32, 34), wherein the deployment
layers (14, 16, 30, 32, 34) comprise at least two of a first
processing layer (14), a second
processing layer (16, 32, 34) and an external
processing layer (30), the method comprising the steps of:providing (60) a containerized application (48, 50) including an asset or
plant template specifying input data, output data and an asset or
plant model,deploying (62) the containerized application (48, 50) to execute on at least one of the deployment
layers (14, 16, 30, 32, 34), wherein the deployment layer (14, 16, 30, 32, 34) is assigned based on the input data, a load indicator, or a
system layer tag, and executing the containerized application (46, 52, 54) on the assigned deployment layer(s) (14, 16, 30, 32, 34) to generate output data for controlling and / or monitoring the
chemical plant (12),providing (66) the generated output data for controlling and / or monitoring the
chemical plant (12).