The Matter duplicator was built, presumably by Wheeljack, to duplicate matter, but it didn't work... it never worked, until Perceptor came through with the ol' Fonzarelli fix. One has to wonder why Optimus didn't say, several years later, "All we need is a little energon and our wonderful matter duplicator". (Tho presumably energon is energy, not matter, and the conversion from one to the other would be cost-prohibitive). One also must wonder why neither the Decepticons nor Cobra never tried to steal it to duplicate gold and destabilize Earth's economies, or some such thing. Perhaps it broke.