Finding possible technical causes of or solutions for malfunctions of a production cell

A device for finding possible technical causes of or solutions for malfunctions of a specific production cell which is one of a plurality of possible production cells, wherein the specific production cell is built of a plurality of different objects and contains at least one cyclically operating shaping machine, the device comprising:

• at least one electronic computing unit;
• at least one machine interface operatively coupled to the at least one electronic computing unit;
• and
• at least one knowledge model providing, for all production cells of the plurality of possible production cells, information that specifies for a plurality of possible malfunctions which objects that are present in one or more of the production cells of the plurality of production cells can cause a given malfunction;
• wherein the at least one electronic computing unit being configured to:
• accept input by an operator of the specific production cell specifying an observation observed by the operator regarding a malfunction of the specific production cell,
• based on the input, access the at least one knowledge model and, for those objects which form part of the specific production cell, identify at least one object which can exhibit a malfunction which is consistent with the observation of the operator of the specific production cell,
• calculate, using an algorithm, at least one technical cause of or solution for the observation provided as input by the operator, and
• provide the calculated at least one technical cause or solution to the operator via the at least one machine interface.