Generalized minimum aberration two-level split-plot designs

Abstract

Split-plot experiments may arise when it is impractical to completely randomize the treatment combinations of a designed experiment. To provide more flexible design choices in the nonregular split-plot setting, we describe an approach for constructing minimum aberration orthogonal two-level split-plot designs having 12, 16, 20 and 24 runs. We consider five design scenarios that may be of importance to practitioners, and then propose an approach for assigning word lengths under these five scenarios. We then use the extended word length patterns to rank both regular and nonregular orthogonal split-plot designs. While most existing papers concerning orthogonal split-plot designs focus on regular orthogonal designs, we find that many minimum aberration split-plot designs are nonregular orthogonal designs.