Minitab - Factorial Designs

This hands-on workshop is normally taught in 1 day (or 1.5 days with additional or custom content).

Learn to generate a variety of full and fractional factorial designs using MINITAB’s intuitive DOE interface. Real-world applications demonstrate how the concepts of randomization, replication, and blocking form the basis for sound experimentation practices. Develop the skills necessary to correctly analyze resulting data to effectively and efficiently reach experimental objectives. Use MINITAB’s customizable and powerful graphical displays to interpret and communicate experimental results to improve products and processes, find critical factors that impact important response variables, reduce process variation, and expedite research and development projects.

$One page summary to select 2-level fractional factorial designs (Acrobat pdf file)$
Fractional Factorial Design Selection Page

Tools and topics Covered Include: Design of Factorial Experiments; Normal Effects Plot and Pareto of Effects; Power and Sample Size; Main Effect, Interaction, and Cube Plots; Center Points; Overlaid Contour Plots; Multiple Response Optimization.

Prerequisite: Introduction to Minitab and Basic Graphical Analysis, Basic Statistics for Manufacturing Quality.

Optional topics are special additions to standard Minitab training workshops, and extend the course by about 1/2 day. All Minitab training workshops use the latest, current version of Minitab, and authorized Minitab training materials.

Overview of Designed Experiments

Pareto chart of effects from Full Factorial Designed Experiment - click for larger image

understand the strategy of designed experiments
recognize the types of experiments available in Minitab

Optional: Tree Diagrams to visualize Factorial (Crossed) designs; Multi-Vari charts to visualize results from Factorial Designed Experiments

Introduction to Factorial Designs

Multivari Chart showing response from 2^3 Full Factorial Designed Experiment - click for larger image

create a factorial designa nd learn about design principles and properties
calculate and interpret main effects and interactions
analyze a full factorial design, generate plots, and interpret results
check model assumptions using residual plots
identify optimal factor settings using graphs and response optimization

Optional:

calculation of all effects from Full Factorial experiment
Excel worksheet for Yates' algorithm
discussion of sample size n = f (alpha, beta, sigma, delta)

Full Factorial Designs

Contour Plot visualizing model after Full Factorial Designed Experiment - click for larger image

perform a power analysis to evaluate differences detected in designed experiments
evaluate the impact of adding replicates and centre points on power
examine the impact of outliers on results and residual plots

Optional: discussion of model hierarchy

Fractional Factorial Designs

Minitab Selection of Fractional and Full Factorial Designs - click for larger image

reduce the number of experimental runs using fractional factorial designs
apply sequential experimentation to fit a model
use centre points to improve power, test for curvature, and estimate pure error

Optional: video on Planned Experimentation (40 minutes)

Multiple Response Optimization

Overlaid Contourplot showing optimal settings for 4 factors, to optimize two responses, following a Fractional Factorial Designed Experiment - click for larger image

use the response optimizer and overlaid contour plot to optimize multiple responses
find factor settings that optimize multiple response variables

Practice Exercises

Each participant receives an official Minitab workbook and data files, as well as a certificate for Recertification Units for completion of this workshop.

See other Minitab Training Courses and comments from previous participants in C.F. Kavanaugh's workshops!