In an approach for real-time opportunity discovery for productivity enhancement of a production process, a processor extracts a set of features from time series data, through autoencoding using a neural network, based on non-control variables for the time series data. A processor identifies one or more operational modes based on the extracted features including a dimensional reduction with a representation learning from the time series data. A processor identifies a neighborhood of a current operational state based on the extracted features. A processor compares the current operational state to historical operational states based on the time series data at the same operational mode. A processor discovers an operational opportunity based on the comparison of the current operational state to the historical operational states using the neighborhood. A processor identifies control variables in the same mode which variables are relevant to the current operational state.