Starting-up production machines takes a considerable part of time and development expenses. Especially in the case of reconfigurable machines a short start-up phase is essential. Many activities, which are necessary during the start-up, can be automated. These are the configuration of mechatronic modules, control- and fieldbus systems as well as the extensive testing of functions. This paper presents an approach based on a service- oriented architecture (SOA) to automate the start-up of a reconfigurable production machine. Functionality for configuration and start-up is provided by an internal middleware system. The sequence control for the startup process is realised within a configuration system. A new approach to the combination of field-bus and middleware communication infrastructure is used to adopt SOA paradigms to existing automation technology. Thus, real-time communication can be combined with flexible communication for the automatic configuration of production machines.