Patent ID: 7739216

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of managing a machinery monitoring system, said method comprising: relating an asset output to at least one asset input wherein the at least one asset input includes at least one of a measured process parameter and a derived process parameter relatable to the asset output; generating at least one rule based on the relation wherein the at least one rule defines the asset output based on the at least one asset input; selecting at least one of live asset data, historical asset data, user-supplied asset data, and third party supplied asset data to test the at least one rule; testing the at least one rule incrementally using the selected asset data and by comparing each asset output to each respective expected asset output, wherein the test comprises a plurality of incremental steps to be performed; determining an expected asset output for the selected data after the plurality of incremental steps are performed; monitoring the asset output of the at least one rule at each increment; displaying incremental results after each of the plurality of incremental steps are completed, wherein each of the incremental results includes a numerical value corresponding to an intermediate value of a test result, wherein a numerical value of at least one incremental result is at least one of a sum, a difference, a product and a quotient of two or more incremental results; and outputting the test result.