1. In a computer-operated system for programming a manufacturing system, wherein a version of a program is downloaded to the manufacturing system and is associated with a version designator, a method for managing revisions to versions of the program, the method comprising the steps of: running the program on the manufacturing system, the program including subsets organized with respect to one another in a hierarchical fashion, the subsets comprising a top-level subset and a plurality of lower-level subsets related hierarchically to the top-level subsets and to each other, each of the subsets identifying a main object and a sub-object, a version designator being associated with each of the subsets, each version designator including a first version identifier associated with the main object and a second version identifier associated the sub-object; revising the first version designator identifier of a certain lower-level subset when the certain lower-level subset is modified; if the modification of the certain lower-level subset affects other subsets, revising the second version identifier of the other affected subsets, and identifying a status of the program as one of released or validated.