With the ongoing growth in the complexity of plants and automation systems, effective computer-based diagnostics is a key element for efficient plant operation. From an IT perspective, modern industrial plants may be seen as pervasive computing environments with heterogeneous interconnected nodes. Using these nodes for distributed diagnostics promises effective handling of diagnostic problems in complex environments. This paper introduces the Fully Integrated Diagnostics (FID) approach. Built around a generic diagnostic knowledge representation language (DKRL), FID is intended to homogeneously connect all instances related to diagnostics, and to provide an architectural concept for the generic management and use of diagnostic knowledge in a distributed fashion. This will be referred to as “generic pervasive diagnostics”.