A production configuration is determined for controlling a product processing plant that comprises a collecting system having a conveyor and a plurality of feeders for preparing product collections from products supplied by the feeders. The production configuration defines a production of a plurality of production sequences for a plurality of delivery routes, wherein each delivery route is assigned one or more production sequences, each of which define a production of a plurality of production collections of a collection type comprising a plurality of products. For each feeder an occupancy with products, which are to be conveyed by the feeder to the conveyor for preparation for the product collections, is determined. A production optimization parameter determines whether a defined production order is to be maintained for the delivery routes or whether the production order of the delivery routes can be altered. If the production order can be altered, the production sequences of a plurality of delivery routes f
