A method of compressing signal data in a programmable logic controller (110E, 110F), the method comprising: creating, by the programmable logic controller, a process image area in a volatile computer-readable storage medium operably coupled to the programmable logic controller; updating, by the programmable logic controller, the process image area with contents comprising signal data associated with a production unit (105A-105D); applying, by the programmable logic controller, a compression algorithm to the contents of the process image area to generate compressed signal data; storing, by the programmable logic controller, the compressed signal data on a non-volatile computer-readable storage medium operably coupled to the programmable logic controller; annotating, by the programmable logic controller, the signal data with automation system context information to generate contextualized data; performing, by the programmable logic controller, a statistical comparison (310, 330, 3250) of the signal data and the compressed signal data to generate statistical comparison results; and automatically adjusting, by the programmable logic controller, one or more compression parameters used by the compression algorithm based on at least one of the statistical comparison and the contextualized data; selecting, by the programmable logic controller, a new compression algorithm based on the one or more compression parameters; updating, by the programmable logic controller, the process image area with new contents comprising new signal data associated with the production unit; applying, by the programmable logic controller, the new compression algorithm to the new contents of the process image area to generate new compressed signal data; and storing, by the programmable logic controller, the new compressed signal data on the non-volatile computer-readable storage medium operably coupled to the programmable logic controller. creating, by the programmable logic controller, a process image area in a volatile computer-readable storage medium operably coupled to the programmable logic controller; updating, by the programmable logic controller, the process image area with contents comprising signal data associated with a production unit (105A-105D); applying, by the programmable logic controller, a compression algorithm to the contents of the process image area to generate compressed signal data; storing, by the programmable logic controller, the compressed signal data on a non-volatile computer-readable storage medium operably coupled to the programmable logic controller; annotating, by the programmable logic controller, the signal data with automation system context information to generate contextualized data; performing, by the programmable logic controller, a statistical comparison (310, 330, 3250) of the signal data and the compressed signal data to generate statistical comparison results; and automatically adjusting, by the programmable logic controller, one or more compression parameters used by the compression algorithm based on at least one of the statistical comparison and the contextualized data; selecting, by the programmable logic controller, a new compression algorithm based on the one or more compression parameters; updating, by the programmable logic controller, the process image area with new contents comprising new signal data associated with the production unit; applying, by the programmable logic controller, the new compression algorithm to the new contents of the process image area to generate new compressed signal data; and storing, by the programmable logic controller, the new compressed signal data on the non-volatile computer-readable storage medium operably coupled to the programmable logic controller.