The efficiency and flexibility of data connection establishment in the automation system development architecture of IEC 61499 is important to support portability and flexibility. To improve this aspect, this paper proposes a method integrating OPC UA functionalities and I/O-accessing capabilities, introducing two function blocks, SmartIX and SmartQX. The solution is illustrated with one use case and comparison with the existing solution. The comparison shows that our proposed solution can improve efficiency, flexibility and portability for IEC 61499 by making fewer changes to existing systems from debugging mode to production mode.