As a result of manufacturer independence, a bus system for open, flexible control architectures must provide the user with a concept for a universal and, above all, manufacturer-independent operation and diagnostics of a system. The configuration, system startup and diagnostic software CMD (Configuration Monitoring Diagnostics) has been developed for INTERBUS. The most important features of this software are the independence from the control system used and the flexibility with respect to program expansions, new functions and add-on programs. The DRIVE-COM User Group, for example, offers add-on programs for parameterizing drives according to the DRIVECOM profile.