A method for monitoring the operation of a component includes receiving a stream of data samples, wherein each data sample represents a value of a physical parameter of the component, identifying local extrema of the stream of data samples, storing information relating to each local extremum in a respective position of a fixed size buffer, and upon the presence of a cycle formed between two matching endpoints represented by two local maxima or two local minima: i) deleting at least one of the local extrema corresponding to the endpoints of the cycle from the buffer, and ii) storing information related to the cycle in a memory such that the information stored in the memory represents the operation of the component. When the buffer is full such that each position of the buffer contains information relating to a unique local extrema, the method further includes the steps of: i) deleting the information relating to the oldest local extrema from the buffer, ii) calculating a pseudo cycle formed between two endpoints of which one endpoint is represented by the deleted oldest local extrema, and iii) storing information related to the calculated pseudo cycle in the memory.