1. A method for managing an industrial process wherein a processor transforms an energy related test signal into an energy prognosis, the method comprising: receiving automatically with the processor the energy related test signal comprising effective power test data indicative of electrical energy consumed by an energy consuming machine; partitioning automatically with the processor the energy related test signal into an energy related test sub-signal; applying automatically with the processor mathematical functions to the energy related test sub-signal to extract a feature set of data from the energy related test sub-signal; transforming automatically with the processor the feature set of data with a transformation matrix into a reduced test feature set; inputting automatically with the processor the reduced test feature set into a performance assessment algorithm, wherein the performance assessment algorithm is based at least in part upon a reduced training feature set derived from data indicative of electrical energy consumed during healthy operation; and generating automatically with the processor the energy prognosis, wherein the energy prognosis is based at least in part upon a power-based performance index calculated by the performance assessment algorithm.