A method and system for monitoring a process in a process plant includes collecting data from a process control system within the process plant, where the data is representative of a normal operation of the process when the process is on-line and operating normally, performing a multivariate statistical analysis to represent the normal operation of the process based on a set of collected on-line process data comprising a measure of the normal operation of the process when the process is on-line and operating normally, and representing a real-time on-line operation of the process using monitored on-line process data as an input to the representation of the normal operation of the process, where the monitored on-line process data comprises a measure of a real-time operation to the process when the process is on-line.