A distributed analytics system to control an operation of a monitored system, and method of operation thereof, including an architect subsystem and an edge processing device. The edge subsystem includes an edge processing device associated with the monitored system. The architect subsystem is configured to deploy an analytic model to the edge processing device based on characteristics of the monitored system. The edge processing device is configured to receive the analytic model and independently perform predictive and prescriptive analytics on dynamic input data associated with the monitored system, provide control signals to the monitored system according to the predictive and prescriptive analytics, and provide information to the architect subsystem, including monitored system responses to the control signals. The architect subsystem is configured to modify the analytic model to improve system performance of the monitored system.