Issue: Volume 6, Number 5 (Circulation: Over 5000 world-wide)
Date: May 2006
From: Mark J. Anderson, Stat-Ease, Inc., "Statistics Made Easy" ™ Blog

Dear Experimenter,

Here's another set of frequently asked questions (FAQs) about doing design of experiments (DOE), plus alerts to timely information and free software updates. If you missed the previous DOE FAQ Alert, please click on the links at the bottom of this page. If you have a question that needs answering, click the Search tab and enter the key words. This finds not only answers from previous Alerts, but also other documents posted to the Stat-Ease web site.

Feel free to forward this newsletter to your colleagues. They can subscribe by going to http://www.statease.com/doealertreg.html. If this newsletter prompts you to ask your own questions about DOE, please address them via mail to:[email protected].

Here's an appetizer to get this Alert off to a good start: A smart spoon developed by MIT to measure temperature, acidity, salinity and viscosity of the food it stirs — see http://www.media.mit.edu/ci/projects/intelligentspoon.html and http://www.ohgizmo.com/2006/04/12/mit-intelligent-spoon/. This should be perfect for optimizing the amount of mayonnaise to mix in with your tuna for the perfect sandwich. If you fancy pickles, the pH measurement may come in handy as well.

Here's what I cover in the body text of this DOE FAQ Alert (topics that delve into statistical detail are designated "Expert"):

1. Newsletter alert: April issue of the Stat-Teaser features release of Design-Ease® version 7 software, our newest consultant, and an entertaining article about a DOE on a dog
2. FAQ: Should measurement of responses be randomized?
3. Events Alert: UK exhibit this month for statisticians in the pharmaceutical industry, plus several talks in June and beyond
4. Workshop Alert: San Jose "Experiment Design Made Easy" and Chicago "Crash Course on DOE for Sales & Marketing"

PS. Quote for the month: A song about analysis of variance!

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1. Newsletter alert: April issue of the Stat-Teaser features release of Design-Ease® version 7 software, our newest consultant, and an entertaining article about a DOE on a dog

Many of you will soon receive or already have a printed copy of the latest Stat-Teaser, but others, by choice or because you reside outside of North America, will get your only view of the April issue at http://www.statease.com/news/news0604.pdf.

It announces the release of Design-Ease version 7 (DE7), the "light" version of Design-Expert® 7 (DX7) software, which became available last September. DE7 offers dozens of new features including innovative design options, enhanced augmentation tools, stronger analysis capabilities, better diagnostics, updated
graphics, an improved user interface, plus more options for design evaluation, expanded help, and new import/export tools. However, the biggest improvement is the addition of numerical optimization to find the most desirable combination for multiple responses, a feature formerly found only in Design-Expert. Try our new release of Design-Ease free for 45 days by downloading the fully-functional trial copy at http://www.statease.com/soft_ftp.html.

Read "A Wonderful Day for a Boy and his Dog" to learn how 6th grader Jon Kraber, with a bit of coaching from his mother — Stat-Ease Consultant Shari Kraber — experimented on which treats enticed their family pet Jasper.

Also, see our newest consultant Wayne Adams pictured with a brief, but somewhat mysterious, biography.

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2. FAQ: Should measurement of responses be randomized?

-----Original Question-----
From: Boston
"Our team developed a DOE using Design-Expert software. The question came up whether one should try to randomize the order in which the responses are measured. My preference is not to bother doing this — quite the opposite: I thought that each test unit should undergo the same response measurement order. What is your take on this?"

Answer (from Stat-Ease Consultant Shari Kraber):
"If possible, the testing should follow the same order as the processing — specified at random in the design layout from your Design-Expert program. This will make the run-ordered diagnostic graphs meaningful. One possible exception to this might be when all experimental materials are made in a single batch, in which case the run order has no meaning for processing. Then do the testing in random order."

(Learn more about principles of DOE by attending the three-day computer-intensive workshop "Experiment Design Made Easy." See http://www.statease.com/clas_edme.html for a course description. Link from this page to the course outline and schedule. Then, if you like, enroll online.)

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3. Events alert: UK exhibit this month for statisticians in the pharmaceutical industry, plus several talks in June and beyond

Stat-Ease's reseller Alan Collins of QD Consulting will exhibit our software at PSI's 29th Annual Conference in Bristol from Sunday the 14th of May to Wednesday the 17th. The conference is the principal annual event for statisticians and programmers in the pharmaceutical industry in the UK. For more details, see http://tinyurl.com/l3whh.

Stat-Ease Consultant Pat Whitcomb will talk about "Value and Implementation of DOE in Coatings Product Development" at the NOVA Paint Club (http://tinyurl.com/pstv9) Technical/Board Meetings, an exclusive gathering of coatings experts in Vancouver, Canada on May 30-31. He will also be one of the featured speakers on "Approaching Product Design Systematically and Strategically" — offered June 23-24 in Orlando before the Annual Meeting and Food Expo of the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT). For information on the IFT preconference class, in which Pat will detail application of factorial, response surface (RSM) and mixture designs, see http://www.am-fe.ift.org/cms/?pid=1000277.

At the 2006 Joint Research Conference on Statistics in Quality, Industry and Technology in Knoxville, TN on June 7-9, Stat-Ease Consultant Shari Kraber will present "PCR Process Optimized via Split-Plot DOE." Register for this conference at http://2006jointresearch.bus.utk.edu/.

Stat-Ease contract-trainer Carl McAfee will give an invited paper at the National Plastics Exhibition (NPE) this summer in Chicago. His talk on "Case Studies and Technical Perspectives on TPEs/TSRs: The Paradigm Shift" features Design-Expert and its capabilities as a tool for innovation and positive change. The NPE is one of the largest venues in the country — over 80,000 attendees last year. See http://www.npe.org/ for details.

Click http://www.statease.com/events.html for a list of appearances by Stat-Ease professionals. We hope to see you sometime in the near future!

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4. Workshop alert: San Jose "Experiment Design Made Easy" and Chicago "Crash Course on DOE for Sales & Marketing"

"Experiment Design Made Easy" will be presented on June 6-8 in San Jose, California. If you work in the western USA and need to master the basics of DOE, do not miss this opportunity for a computer-intensive workshop by a Stat-Ease statistical consultant.

(If you are a corporate technical professional, please pass this news on to your business people!) Quickly identify those factors which affect your sales and marketing results. Learn how they interact and apply that knowledge to make breakthrough increases in sales and profits. Attend the one-day "Crash Course on DOE for Sales & Marketing" in Chicago on June 22. See the course description and links to the syllabus and online enrollment at http://www.statease.com/clas_smdoe.html.

See http://www.statease.com/clas_pub.html for schedule and site information on all Stat-Ease workshops open to the public. To enroll, click the "register online" link on our web site or call Stat-Ease at 1.612.378.9449. If spots remain available, bring along several colleagues and take advantage of quantity discounts in tuition, or consider bringing in an expert from Stat-Ease to teach a private class at your site. Call us to get a quote.

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I hope you learned something from this issue. Address your general questions and comments to me at: [email protected].

Sincerely,

Mark

Mark J. Anderson, PE, CQE
Principal, Stat-Ease, Inc. (http://www.statease.com)
2021 East Hennepin Avenue, Suite 480
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55413 USA

PS. Quote for the month—A song about analysis of variance:

"ANOVA Man"

Words: Mark Glickman
Music: Lennon/McCartney ("Nowhere Man")

"He's a real ANOVA man
Designing all his sampling plans
Calculating mean-squared errors and p-values.

Wants to test for equal mu's
Knows which tables he must use
All his samples he will choose at random.

ANOVA man, please listen;
Where's the data that you're missing?
ANOVA man, what kinds of bias can you withstand?

Writes down two hypotheses;
Hopes to reject the first of these;
Needs to list out all degrees of freedom.

ANOVA man, try harder;
Don't give up, you're smarter;
ANOVA man, how come your students don't understand?

At 0.05 he rejects
Ignores the size of his effects
Now he's stuck — he's got selection bias!

ANOVA man, please listen;
Where's the data that you're missing?
ANOVA man, what kinds of bias can you withstand?

He's a real ANOVA man
Designing all his sampling plans
Calculating mean-squared errors and p-values."

— Used with permission from the author: Mark E. Glickman, Associate Professor in the Department of Health Services at the Boston University School of Public Health. Hear his song at http://math.bu.edu/people/mg/music/anovaman.mp3.

Trademarks: Design-Ease, Design-Expert and Stat-Ease are registered trademarks of Stat-Ease, Inc.

Acknowledgements to contributors:
—Students of Stat-Ease training and users of Stat-Ease software
—Fellow Stat-Ease consultants Pat Whitcomb, Shari Kraber and Wayne Adams (see http://www.statease.com/consult.html for resumes)
—Statistical advisor to Stat-Ease: Dr. Gary Oehlert (http://www.statease.com/garyoehl.html)
—Stat-Ease programmers, especially Tryg Helseth and Neal Vaughn (http://www.statease.com/pgmstaff.html)
—Heidi Hansel, Stat-Ease marketing director, and all the remaining staff

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Interested in previous FAQ DOE Alert e-mail newsletters?
To view a past issue, choose it below.

#1 Mar 01, #2 Apr 01, #3 May 01, #4 Jun 01, #5 Jul 01 , #6 Aug 01, #7 Sep 01, #8 Oct 01, #9 Nov 01, #10 Dec 01, #2-1 Jan 02, #2-2 Feb 02, #2-3 Mar 02, #2-4 Apr 02, #2-5 May 02, #2-6 Jun 02, #2-7 Jul 02, #2-8 Aug 02, #2-9 Sep 02, #2-10 Oct 02, #2-11 Nov 02, #2-12 Dec 02, #3-1 Jan 03, #3-2 Feb 03, #3-3 Mar 03, #3-4 Apr 03, #3-5 May 03, #3-6 Jun 03, #3-7 Jul 03, #3-8 Aug 03, #3-9 Sep 03 #3-10 Oct 03, #3-11 Nov 03, #3-12 Dec 03, #4-1 Jan 04, #4-2 Feb 04, #4-3 Mar 04, #4-4 Apr 04, #4-5 May 04, #4-6 Jun 04, #4-7 Jul 04, #4-8 Aug 04, #4-9 Sep 04, #4-10 Oct 04, #4-11 Nov 04, #4-12 Dec 04, #5-1 Jan 05, #5-2 Feb 05, #5-3 Mar 05, #5-4 Apr 05, #5-5 May 05, #5-6 Jun 05, #5-7 Jul 05, #5-8 Aug 05, #5-9 Sep 05, #5-10 Oct 05, #5-11 Nov 05, #5-12 Dec 05, #6-01 Jan 06, #6-02 Feb 06, #6-03 Mar 06, #6-4 Apr 06, #6-5 May 06 (see above)

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