Computer-Aided Design of Experiments—Some Practical Experiences

Abstract

It does not appear to be widely recognized that a computer can be a useful aid in the design of experiments as well as in the analysis of the data. The computer can be particularly useful in the administration of an experimental program and in developing experimental plans for those situations in which the classic designs (e.g., factorial and response surface) are not applicable. Such situations include irregularly-shaped experimental regions, mixture experiments and formulation studies, the need to construct unusual fractions of factorial designs, and experimental plans to estimate the parameters in nonlinear models. Several examples are presented to illustrate the practical problems encountered and how computer algorithms can be helpful in developing useful experimental designs.