Distributed industrial performance monitoring and analytics

A system for providing early fault detection in a process plant, the system comprising:

• a plurality of process control devices operating in a process plant;
• a processor;
• a program memory, communicatively coupled to the processor, and comprising a tangible, non-transitory storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to:
• obtain a process signal comprising time domain data generated as a result of the plurality of process control devices operating in the process plant;
• determine a leading indicator of a condition of the process plant based on the obtained process signal;
• define a process variable corresponding to the leading indicator;
• perform a rolling fast Fourier transform (FFT) on a subsequent process signal to generate frequency domain data for each of a plurality of time periods;
• generate time-series data having a sequence of values corresponding to values of a frequency of interest in the frequency domain data generated for the plurality of time periods, wherein the frequency of interest is associated with the defined process variable and wherein each of the values of the time-series data corresponds to a respective one of the plurality of time periods;
• monitor the time-series data corresponding to the defined process variable for a presence of the leading indicator;
• and
• generate an indication corresponding to a prediction of the condition based on a detected presence of the leading indicator in the monitored time-series data.

A tangible, non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions for providing early fault detection in a process plant that, when executed by a processor of a computer system, cause the computer system to:

• obtain a process signal comprising time domain data generated as a result of one or more process control devices operating to control a process in the process plant;
• determine a leading indicator of a condition of the process plant based on the obtained process signal;
• define a process variable corresponding to the leading indicator;
• perform a rolling fast Fourier transform (FFT) on a subsequent process signal to generate frequency domain data for each of a plurality of time periods;
• generate time-series data having a sequence of values corresponding to values of a frequency of interest in the frequency domain data generated for the plurality of time periods, wherein the frequency of interest is associated with the defined process variable and wherein each of the values of the time-series data corresponds to a respective one of the plurality of time periods;
• monitor the time-series data corresponding to the defined process variable for a presence of the leading indicator;
• and
• generate an indication corresponding to a prediction of the condition based on a detected presence of the leading indicator in the monitored time-series data.