An Interactive Spreadsheet-Based Tool to Support Teaching Design of Experiments

Abstract

This paper describes an interactive spreadsheet-based tool that can be used to generate data representative of the type that might be obtained running a structured set of experiments. The purpose of this tool is to help the user experience the iterative nature of design and analysis of experiments. The tool supports quick and simple generation of data for one and two-factor problems. The underlying relationships are based on queuing approximations for a single-stage batch production environment. Factor levels are related to product lot sizes and the response is assumed to be average lot flowtimes. Variability due to replication is emulated by sampling from a statistical distribution. Statistical software packages can be used to generate linear or quadratic models from the results generated. Analysis can include the examination of main and interaction effects or the optimization of lot sizes to minimize flowtimes.