Abstract: In some embodiments, a computer-implemented method of improving industrial process control by finding significant multi-variate correlations within a plurality of variables representing sensor data is provided. A computing system obtains time series data streams for the plurality of variables. The computing system generates pairwise correlation values between the variables of the plurality of variables. The computing system determines a variable of interest from the plurality of variables, and performs a graph search to determine one or more significant multi-variate correlations between variables from the plurality of variables and the variable of interest. Variables are filtered from the graph search using a heuristic based on the pairwise correlation values. The multi-variate correlations are provided to support the industrial process control.