Design of Experiments (DOE) with Excel
Design of Experiments (DOE) is a very useful process improvement methodology. Microsoft Excel has some powerful data analysis tools, which I have, successfully, used for DOE. When it comes to analyzing cause and effect, we want to know what process factors affect our outputs. Correlation and Regression could give us an indication of the main factors, and the extent they affect the outputs. In some cases, there may be interactions among the different factors, or the mathematical relation between factors and outputs may not be linear. In these cases, it is useful to run a systematic set of experiments, to test all possible combinations of factors, to relate them to the outputs. Factorial Experiment Example We want to minimize process loss, and after some brainstorming among the process specialists, we concluded that 5 factors may affect loss. Based on current factor levels, we have selected the following levels to experiment with: Download this Excel file DOE_with_Excel.xlsm fro