We propose in this paper a Petri net approach to online diagnosis of discrete event systems (DESs) modeled by finite state automata. The diagnosis method is based on the construction of a Petri net diagnoser (PND) which is constructed in polynomial time and requires less memory than other methods proposed in the literature. We also present methods for the conversion of the PND to both sequential function chart and ladder diagram for implementation on a programmable logic controller (PLC). Implementation issues are also addressed in the paper.