11/10/2016

8 Expert Tips for Excellent Designed Experiments (DOE) | Minitab

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8 Expert Tips for Excellent Designed Experiments (DOE)

Eston Martz (http://blog.minitab.com/blog/understanding-statistics) . 2 November, 2016
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If your work involves quality improvement, you've at least heard of Design of Experiments
(DOE). You probably know it's the most efficient way to optimize and improve your process. But
many of us find DOE intimidating, especially if it's not a tool we use often. How do you select
an appropriate design, and ensure you've got the right number of factors and levels? And after
you've gathered your data, how do you pick the right model for your analysis?

One way to get started with DOE is the

Assistant in Minitab Statistical Software.
Get a weekly
When you have many factors to evaluate,
summary of the latest
the Assistant will walk you through a DOE
blog posts.
to identify which factors matter the most
(screening designs)
Sign Me Up >
(http://blog.minitab.com/blog/landingpages/five-topreasons-tosubscribe-tothe-minitab(http://blog.minitab.com/blog/understanding-statistics/applying-doe-for-great-grilling-part-1).
blog)
Then the Assistant can guide you through a designed experiment to fine-tune the important

factors for maximum impact (optimization designs)

(http://blog.minitab.com/blog/understanding-statistics/applying-doe-for-great-grilling-part-2).
If you're comfortable enough to skip the Assistant, but still have some questions about whether
you're approaching your DOE the right way, consider the following tips from Minitab's technical
trainers. These veterans have done a host of designed experiments, both while working with
Minitab customers and in their careers in before they became Minitab trainers.

1. Identify the right variable space to study with exploratory

runs.
Performing exploratory runs before doing the main experiment can help you identify
the settings of your process as performance moves from good to bad. This can help you
determine the variable space to conduct your experiment that will yield the most beneficial
results.

2. Spread control runs throughout the experiment to measure

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2. Spread control runs throughout the experiment to measure

process stability.
Since center-point runs are usually near-normal operating conditions
(http://blog.minitab.com/blog/michelle-paret/doe-center-points-what-they-are-why-theyreuseful), they can act as a control to check process performance. By spacing center points evenly
through the design, these observations serve as an indicator of the stability of your processor
lack thereofduring the experiment.

3. Identify the biggest problems with Pareto analysis.

A Pareto chart of product load or defect levels can help you identify which problem to fix that
will result in the highest return to your business. Focusing on problems with high business
impact improves support for your experiment by raising its priority among all potential
improvement projects.

4. Improve power by expanding the range of input settings.

Test the largest range of input variable settings that is physically possible. Even if you think they
are far away from the sweet spot, this technique will allow you to use the experiment to
understand your process so that you can find the optimal settings.

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5. Fractionate to save runs, focusing on Resolution V designs.

In many cases, it's beneficial to choose a design with or of the runs of a full factorial
(http://blog.minitab.com/blog/applying-statistics-in-quality-projects/design-of-experimentsfractionating-and-folding-a-doe). Even though effects could be confounded or confused with
each other, Resolution V designs minimize the impact of this confounding which allows you to
estimate all main effects and two-way interactions. Conducting fewer runs can save money and
keep experiment costs low.

6. Improve the power of your experiment with replicates.

Power is the probability of detecting an effect on the response, if that effect exists. The number
of replicates affects your experiment's power. To increase the chance that you will be successful
identifying the inputs that affect your response, add replicates to your experiment to increase
its power.

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7. Improve power by using quantitative measures for your

response.
Reducing defects is the primary goal of most experiments, so it makes sense that defect counts
are often used as a response. But defect counts are a very expensive and unresponsive output
to measure. Instead, try measuring a quantitative indicator related to your defect level. Doing
this can decrease your sample size dramatically and improve the power of your experiment.

8. Study all variables of interest and all key responses.

Factorial designs let you take a comprehensive approach to studying all potential input
variables. Removing a factor from the experiment slashes your chance of determining its
importance to zero. With the tools available in statistical software such as Minitab
(http://www.minitab.com/products/minitab) to help, you shouldn't let fear of complexity cause
you to omit potentially important input variables.
Do you have any DOE tips to add to this list?

You Might Also Like:

Four More Tips for Making Sure Your DOE isn't D.O.A. (http://blog.minitab.com/blog/real-world-quality-improvement/fourmore-tips-for-making-sure-your-doe-isnt-doa)
Four Tips for Making Sure Your DOE isnt D.O.A. (http://blog.minitab.com/blog/real-world-quality-improvement/four-tips-formaking-sure-your-doe-isnt-doa)
Applying DOE for Great Grilling, part 1 (http://blog.minitab.com/blog/understanding-statistics/applying-doe-for-great-grillingpart-1)
Getting Started with Factorial Design of Experiments (DOE) (http://blog.minitab.com/blog/understanding-statistics/gettingstarted-with-factorial-design-of-experiments-doe)

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Paul Carroll 6 days ago

Here's my DOE tip: After determining the optimal settings of the variables tested, always perform a confirmation
run using these newly determined settings. This will confirm whether the results of the DOE are true or if there
was something that may went wrong or may have been overlooked.
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Eston Martz

Mod

Paul Carroll 6 days ago

ABSOLUTELY! This is a great tip, Paul -- thank you for reading and contributing!
Reply Share
Miguel 6 days ago

I would add Randomization (and sticking to it!). you never know when a lurking variable might spoil the results of
the analysis.
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