Practical Multi-Factor Test Design and Analysis

Henry Davis Mitchell III, P.E.

Course Outline

Product and process testing is necessary to establish real and lasting improvements in product quality and process yield.  This is often approached through a step-wise process of testing single factors which is costly in terms of production and can miss interactions of the factors influencing the product and process performance. 

Through a structured design for testing and analysis, the process engineer can establish the critical factors and interaction of factors within the process which influence the results.
This course includes a fundamental review of descriptive statistics on process/product measurements; a review of the importance of design to determine interaction and design to find these interactions; analysis methods to determine the magnitude and direction of primary and interactive effects and includes an EXCEL spreadsheet to perform the above functions.

This course includes a multiple-choice quiz at the end, which is designed to enhance the understanding of the course materials.

Learning Objective

At the conclusion of this course, the student will:

• Understand the process for planning, executing and analyzing the results from a multi-factor test;
• Understand the descriptive statistics in product and process measurements;
• Be able to recognize the advantage of multiple factor testing over single factor tests;
• Be able to understand the process mapping process to classify factors and select recorded, controlled and test factors;
• Be able to design simple multiple factor tests which can determine primary and interactive effects;
• Be able to understand the foundation and mathematics behind an Analysis of Variance;
• Utilize Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to analyze test results;
• Be able to use the results of the ANOVA to understand the magnitude and direction of the factors and interaction on the process or product results; and
• Be able to utilize the included EXCEL spreadsheets to complete the quiz and apply to future tests.

Intended Audience

This course is intended for process engineers and managers.

Benefit to Attendees

Students that complete this course will be able to design and execute process tests to determine meaningful improvements in product quality and process performance.

Course Introduction

Most processes have multiple inputs that directly or interactively influence the result in product quality and process yield. Single factor (one at a time) testing can miss the interactive influence of factors which results in sub-optimum performance.  By use of the structured methods provided the process engineer can design tests to understand primary and interactive influences on the process yield and product quality.

Course Content

In this lesson, you are required to download and study the following document:

Practical Multi-Factor Test Design and Analysis

Once you purchase the course, you can download the following Excel Templates in the Quiz:

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2x4.xltx

Please click on the above underlined hypertext to view, download or print the document for your study. Because of the large file size, we recommend that you first save the file to your computer by right-clicking the mouse and choosing "Save Target As ...", and then open the file in Adobe Acrobat Reader from your computer.

Course Summary

Practical Multi-Factor Test Design and Analysis provides fundamental information on the design and analysis of process testing to determine the influence of direct and interactive factors which can lead to the desired results in process performance.

Quiz

Once you finish studying the above course content, you need to take a quiz to obtain the PDH credits.