Interactive Desirability Function Approach to Multi-Response Surface Optimization

Abstract

A common problem encountered in product or process design is the selection of optimal parameters that involves simultaneous consideration of multi-response characteristics, called a multi-response surface (MRS) problem. There are several approaches proposed for MRS optimization (MRO), including the priority-based approach, the desirability function approach, and the loss function approach. The existing MRO approaches require that all the preference information of a decision maker be articulated prior to solving the problem. However, it is difficult for the decision maker to articulate all the preference information in advance. This paper proposes an interactive approach, called an interactive desirability function approach (IDFA), to overcome the common limitation of the existing approaches. IDFA focuses on extracting the decision maker's preference information in an interactive manner. IDFA requires no explicit tradeoffs among the responses and gives an opportunity for the decision maker to learn his/her own tradeoff space. Consequently, through IDFA, it is more likely that the decision maker finds a solution which is faithful to his/her preference structure.