Book excerpt: IEC 61499 is the newly adopted standard for distributed control systems and follows on from the IEC 61131 standard for programmable logic controllers (PLCs). This book discusses real-time execution of the models defined in the IEC 61499 standard with a closer look at predictable, event-triggered real-time systems. Manufacturing industries are experiencing rapidly changing global markets and thus face an increasing demand for flexible adaptable production systems. The text guides the reader in understanding how to design and reconfigure control applications at the real-time control layer of the automation system. The author describes how to introduce reconfiguration to existing as well as new software architectures and how to support reconfiguration in an execution environment. This book targets control, automation, and software engineers intending to develop distributed flexible industrial automation systems, as well as developers of adaptable embedded systems.