A system and a method of managing a manufacturing process includes receiving production data relating to the manufacturing process and determining an operational mode associated with the manufacturing process using historical, multivariate senor data. The method may further determine a recommended action to affect production based on the determined operational mode. The operational mode may be based on at least one of: a level of operation in a continuous flow process relating to a joint set of process variables, a representation of a joint dynamic of the set of process variables over a predefined length, and a joint configuration of an uptime/downtime of a plurality of units comprising a process flow.