DOE Simplified, 3rd Edition

8

Response Surface Methods for Optimization

The first step comes in a burst. Then “bugs,” as such little faults and difficulties are called, show themselves. Months of intense study and labor are required before commercial success.

Thomas Edison (1878)

This chapter provides a broad overview of more advanced techniques for optimization called response surface methods or RSM. (For a much more detailed description of this technique, read RSM Simplified: Optimizing Processes Using Response Surface Methods for Design of Experiments (Productivity Press, 2004).) RSM should be applied only after completing the initial phases of experimentation:

1. Fractional two-level designs that screen the vital few from the trivial many factors.
2. Full factorials that ...