Suggesting and/or creating agents in an industrial automation system

An apparatus for at least one of suggesting and creating agents in an industrial automation system, the industrial automation system comprising:

• automation devices which each at least partially have a processor
• wherein the processor at least one of (i) collects and (ii) processes data of the automation devices;
• a data storage configured to save the data of the processor;
• an agent suggester within the industrial automation system which is configured to process the data from the data storage into clusters via a cluster analysis;
• and
• wherein the agent suggester within the industrial automation system includes an interface and makes the clusters available at the interface such that a model for the agents becomes creatable via an agent generator based on at least one selection of the clusters.

An automation device comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a data storage;
• wherein the automation device has a framework which is configured to execute an agent at least one of created and suggested by:
• performing cluster analysis by an agent suggester to process data of a data sink into clusters;
• and
• making the clusters available at an interface by the agent suggester such that a model for the agent becomes creatable via an agent generator within an industrial automation system based on at least one selection of the clusters.