1. A method suitable for use in a manufacturing environment comprising a multiplicity of nominally identical independent tools, the method comprising the steps of: configuring a computing device including a processor and a memory to generate a multi dimensional array of process trace data derived from at least one of the independent tools, wherein, said array including data representing a first dimension comprising a list of steps in a manufacturing recipe and data representing a second dimension comprising a list of a set of sensors generating measurements from at least one of the independent tools; configuring said computing device including said processor and said memory to conduct an analysis on at least one preselected subset of said multi dimensional array for the purpose of evaluating at least one operating characteristic of at least one of the independent tools; and configuring said computing device including said processor and said memory to present results of the analysis via a set of hierarchically linked and browseable graphics.