Abstract: A system and method for control and monitoring of rotating equipment through the use of machine status classification where, in one embodiment, adaptive control measures responsive to the machine status are implemented. The invention provides a computer-implemented method for monitoring a mechanical component using either a neural network or weighted distance classifier. The method references a predetermined set of candidate data features for a sensor measuring an operational attribute of the component and derives a subset of those features which are then used in real-time to determine class affiliation parameter values. The classification database is updated when an anomalous measurement is encountered, even as monitoring of the mechanical component continues in real-time. The invention also provides a dimensionless peak amplitude data feature and a dimensionless peak separation data feature for use in classifying.