Introductory Videos on Using Design of Experiments to Improve Results

The video shows Stu Hunter discussing design of experiments in 1966. It might be a bit slow going at first but the full set of videos really does give you a quick overview of the many important aspects of design of experiments including factorial designed experiments, fractional factorial design, blocking and response surface design. It really is quite good, if you find the start too slow for you skip down to the second video and watch it.

My guess is, for those unfamiliar with even the most cursory understanding of design of experiments, the discussion may start moving faster than you can absorb the information. One of the great things about video is you can just pause and give yourself a chance to catch up or repeat a part that you didn’t quite understand. You can also take a look at articles on design of experiments.

I believe design of experiments is an extremely powerful methodology of improvement that is greatly underutilized. Six sigma is the only management improvement program that emphasizes factorial designed experiments.

Related: One factor at a time (OFAT) Versus Factorial Designs – The purpose of Factorial Designed Experiments

The videos are really aimed at those that have an appreciation for what may be possible with factorial designed experiments but not much more understanding than that. The videos included in this post, illustrate the benefits of using design of experiments; they are not designed to teach you how to use the methods.

I am not related to Stu Hunter, he did, however, write Statistics of Experimenters with my father and George Box. I am biased but many others share my opinion that this is the classic text for those practicing multivariate experiments aimed at process improvement.

I like this quote form the video “wed together your experience… with the arts of statistics so you will be more valuable to yourselves and more valuable to those you work with.” He doesn’t say “gemba” but that is what he talks about. This was 1966, so the focus is on industrial and manufacturing contexts but design of experiments is valuable anywhere you have multiple variable to experiment with (marketing, web sites, health care… basically everywhere). Google’s website optimizer has encouraged many people to explore multivariate testing on their web sites.

I will be adding posts on more of the videos covering topics like variation, randomization, and incomplete blocks.