Abstract: In a method for the analysis of process data of an industrial plant, in particular a power station plant, parts of the plant are automatically controlled for the purpose of information compression, filtering and diagnosing faults in good time. Features characterizing the plant process are first prescribed and parameters relevant to the plant process are provided. Subsequently, the presence of each feature is checked for each plant part by using the parameters. Correlations between combinations of plant parts or features are determined by using features common to various plant parts and plant parts common to various features. Next, the plant parts and/or the features are represented as information elements positioned in such a way that the distance between two information elements in each case represents the degree of their correlation.

Abstract: A monitoring system for an industrial plant, in particular for a power station plant, has a number of plant parts which can be represented as information elements on a display unit. For the purposes of information compression, filtering and diagnosing faults in good time, the information elements can be displayed in a positioned manner by using process data that are relevant for a plant state in such a way that the distance between two information elements in each case represents the degree of their contextual similarity.