Abstract
As a means of increasing the quality and productivity of R&D efforts, we provide an integrated collection of experimental design tools for use by researchers at the Becton Dickinson Research Center. The bases for these tools are a set of well-accepted guidelines for experimental procedures and a tabulation of practical experimental designs. The designs themselves are provided to researchers in an easy-to-use personal computer (PC) spreadsheet format. The data can then be easily exported to a commercial PC statistics package. A PC based expert system, called Dexter, assists researchers in following the guidelines for selecting which of the tabulated designs should be used for a given experiment.
Dexter incorporates the expertise of a consulting statistician in helping a user select a design from among 35 designs for industrial screening experiments. The designs considered include from three to eleven experimental factors with a maximum sample size of 32 runs. The evaluation is based on the calculation of design scores which model guidelines for selecting experimental designs. A graph isomorphism algorithm is used to match particular design characteristics such as estimable two-factor interactions. Smart search techniques and precomputing of graph representations minimize run times and make the PC platform practical. The window-oriented, menu-driven interface is intuitive and easy-to use.
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Haaland, P.D., Lusth, J.C., Liddle, R.F. et al. Dexter: A guide to selecting the best design for an industrial screening experiment. Ann Math Artif Intell 2, 179–195 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01531005
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01531005