Design of Engineering Experiments
Chapter 1 – Introduction
• Why is this trip necessary? Goals of the
course
• An abbreviated history of DOX
• Some basic principles and terminology
• The strategy of experimentation
• Guidelines for planning, conducting and
analyzing experiments
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Introduction to DOX
• An experiment is a test or a series of tests
• Experiments are used widely in the engineering
world
– Process characterization & optimization
– Evaluation of material properties
– Product design & development
– Component & system tolerance determination
• “All experiments are designed experiments, some
are poorly designed, some are well-designed”
2
Engineering Experiments
• Reduce time to design/develop new
products & processes
• Improve performance of existing
processes
• Improve reliability and performance of
products
• Achieve product & process robustness
• Evaluation of materials, design
alternatives, setting component & system
tolerances, etc.
3
Four Eras in the History of DOX
• The agricultural origins, 1908 – 1940s
– W.S. Gossett and the t-test (1908)
– R. A. Fisher & his co-workers
– Profound impact on agricultural science
– Factorial designs, ANOVA
• The first industrial era, 1951 – late 1970s
– Box & Wilson, response surfaces
– Applications in the chemical & process industries
• The second industrial era, late 1970s – 1990
– Quality improvement initiatives in many companies
– Taguchi and robust parameter design, process robustness
• The modern era, beginning circa 1990
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William Sealy Gosset (1876‐1937)
Gosset's interest in barley cultivation led
him to speculate that design of
experiments should aim, not only at
improving the average yield, but also at
breeding varieties whose yield was
insensitive (robust) to variation in soil and
climate.
Gosset was a friend of both Karl Pearson
and R.A. Fisher, an achievement, for each
had a monumental ego and a loathing for
the other.
Gosset was a modest man who cut short
an admirer with the comment that “Fisher
would have discovered it all anyway.”
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R. A. Fisher (1890 – 1962) George E. P. Box
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The Basic Principles of DOX
• Randomization
– Running the trials in an experiment in random order
– Notion of balancing out effects of “lurking” variables
• Replication
– Sample size (improving precision of effect estimation,
estimation of error or background noise)
– Replication versus repeat measurements? (see pages 12, 13)
• Blocking
– Dealing with nuisance factors
7
Strategy of Experimentation
• “Best-guess” experiments
– Used a lot
– More successful than you might suspect, but there are
disadvantages…
• One-factor-at-a-time (OFAT) experiments
– Sometimes associated with the “scientific” or
“engineering” method
– Devastated by interaction, also very inefficient
• Statistically designed experiments
– Based on Fisher’s factorial concept
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Factorial Designs
• In a factorial experiment, all
possible combinations of
factor levels are tested
• The golf experiment:
– Type of driver
– Type of ball
– Walking vs. riding
– Type of beverage
– Time of round
– Weather
– Type of golf spike
– Etc, etc, etc…
9
Factorial Design
10
11
Factorial Designs with Several Factors
12
13
Factorial Designs with Several Factors
A Fractional Factorial
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Planning, Conducting &
Analyzing an Experiment
1. Recognition of & statement of problem
2. Choice of factors, levels, and ranges
3. Selection of the response variable(s)
4. Choice of design
5. Conducting the experiment
6. Statistical analysis
7. Drawing conclusions, recommendations
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Planning, Conducting &
Analyzing an Experiment
• Get statistical thinking involved early
• Your non-statistical knowledge is crucial to
success
• Pre-experimental planning (steps 1-3) vital
• Think and experiment sequentially (use the KISS
principle)
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