Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog: Deming, lean thinking, innovation, customer focus, continual improvement, six sigma.
November 28, 2006
Why Use Designed Factorial Experiments?

One-Factor-at-a-Time Versus Designed Experiments by Veronica Czitrom:

The advantages of designed experiments over [One Factor at a Time] OFAT experiments are illustrated using three real engineering OFAT experiments, and showing how in each case a designed experiment would have been better. This topic is important because many scientists and engineers continue to perform OFAT experiments.

I still remember, as a child, asking what my father was going to be teaching the company he was going to consult with for a few days. He said he was going to teach them about using designed factorial experiments. I said, but you explained that to me and I am just a kid, how can you be teaching adults that? Didn’t they learn it in school? The article is a good introduction to the idea of why one factor at a time experiments are an ineffective way to learn.

Related: Design of Experiments articles - Statistics for Experimenters (2nd Edition) - Design of Experiments blog posts

One Response to “Why Use Designed Factorial Experiments?”

  1. Sarah, aged 3, Learns About Soap Says:

    [...] I remember such discussions with Dad (Chemical Engineering professor). The only danger I saw was him getting tied of -why? (when I was older). And sometimes giving me answers the teacher didn’t like (a way of doing math problems that wasn’t the way my teacher was teaching). [...]

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