1. A method for determining prognostic information for equipment controlled by a programmable logic controller, using a prognostics analysis program embedded in a software platform of the programmable logic controller, the method comprising: determining whether the prognostics analysis program has an idle status; only if the prognostics analysis program has an idle status, then, by the programmable logic controller during programmable logic controller real-time cycles, reading a predetermined number of data samples from a data acquisition device and writing the data samples to a buffer; after writing the predetermined number of data samples to the buffer, activating, by a system function block of the programmable logic controller software platform, the prognostics analysis program to have an active status; reading the data samples from the buffer into the prognostics analysis program; identifying an operating condition of the equipment based on the data samples from the buffer; based on the operating condition of the equipment, extracting a plurality of features from the data samples from the buffer; determining whether a model corresponding to the identified operating condition has been trained; only if the model has been trained, using the model, determining the prognostic information based on the features; and after determining the prognostic information, setting the prognostics analysis program status to idle.