System and method of module engineering for an industrial process

An industrial plant module-based engineering system includes a group module library navigator that contains: a plurality of group class modules and a respective plurality of child class modules under an associated group class module of the plurality of group class modules. A group module instantiation engine is configured to instantiate the group class module with reflecting a hierarchy of the group class modules to generate, in an application structure navigator, a group application module (group APM) and a hierarchy of the group application module (group APM) from the group class module, and to instantiate the child class module to generate, in the application structure navigator, a child application module (child APM) from the child class module. The group module update engine is configured to update the allocation of each group class module and a respective topology of the complex loops of each group class module.