In This Issue

 ----------------------------- 

Publisher’s Foreword

First, we would like to apologize to Dr. Selden B. Crary for leaving the byline off the excellent article that he wrote last month comparing the efficiencies of classical designs and I-optimal designs.  Those that enjoyed this article may also enjoy a letter that we got from Dr. Greg Piepel in response to Selden’s article. 

http://www.processbuilder.com/doe/Newsletters/BackIssues/October_1999.htm

http://www.processbuilder.com/doe/Newsletters/Letters/piepel2.htm

Next, we would like to thank Bill Kappele for his excellent article below.  Note that this has a lot of tables and special formatting.  If they do not show up in the version you receive, read the article on-line at our web site.  Note the announcement at the end of the article on the free teleclass on I-optimal designs .

-------

Using I-Optimal Designs for Narrower Confidence Limits

By William D. Kappele
President, Math Options Inc.

Introduction  

Industrial experiments demand high quality predictions of product performance from a small amount of data.  Scientists and engineers need experiment designs which provide narrow confidence limits on predictions to meet this demand.  The effect of a design on the quality of predictions is seldom considered when selecting a design.  This paper shows the advantages of I-optimal designs over conventional designs used in industry.  Confidence intervals for predictions will show that I-optimal designs are better.

What are I-Optimal Designs?

Trials in designed experiments are "well spread out" from each other.  Classic designs spread the points out in space.  I-optimal designs spread the points out to provide the minimum average variance of predictions over the region of interest.  The variance is the square of the standard deviation of the prediction from the fitted model. 

I-optimal designs can be difficult to make.  Dave Doehlert, Neil Sloane and Ron Hardin have developed a means of making I-optimal designs relatively quickly.  Their designs are called "spherical code designs" or "Hardin-Sloane designs."  Doehlert, Hardin and Sloane have made it feasible for industrial experimenters to use I-optimal designs in their work.

Design Comparison Criteria

In this paper I will compare I-optimal designs with three designs provided to us by experimenters in industry.  Industrial experiments demand high quality predictions of product performance, so the criteria for comparison should be the quality of the predictions. 

Predictions with narrower confidence limits are better quality.  The experiment design affects the width of the confidence limits on predictions.  A superior design will have a smaller average confidence limit width on its predictions. 

I will compare a conventional design with a corresponding I-optimal design for three different cases:  case 1 is a simple process factor design;  case 2 is a mixture design;  and case 3 is a process factor design with a constraint.  For each case I have selected a random point.  You will see the confidence limits for the prediction at this random point for each design.  You will also see the average confidence limits for predictions at 1000 different points in the region of interest.  To focus the comparisons only on the contribution of the design to the confidence limits, I have standardized t to 2.57 and s to 1.00.  These confidence limits will allow you to compare the quality of the designs for industrial applications.

Another measure of the quality of a design is the "integrated variance" (IV).  This is the average variance for the entire region of interest.  Smaller IV indicates a better experiment design.

Case 1:  A Simple Process Design with 4 Factors

The conventional design for case 1 is listed in table 1 below.  It is a 4 factor design for the quadratic model with 2-factor interactions included.  It has 25 runs:  20 trials, 5 of which have 2 replicates each.

Trial

X1

X2

X3

X4

20

-1

0

-1

1

3

1

-1

1

-1

4

-1

1

1

-1

8

-1

1

1

1

9

1

1

1

0

1

-1

-1

-1

-1

14

1

0

0

1

1

-1

-1

-1

-1

2

1

1

-1

-1

11

-1

1

-1

0

2

1

1

-1

-1

15

0

1

0

1

4

-1

1

1

-1

10

1

-1

-1

0

12

-1

-1

1

0

19

-1

0

1

-1

3

1

-1

1

-1

5

-1

-1

-1

1

7

1

-1

1

1

13

0

0

1

1

17

0

1

-1

-1

18

1

-1

0

-1

6

1

1

-1

1

16

0

-1

-1

1

5

-1

-1

-1

1

 Conventional Process Design
Table 1

The corresponding I-optimal design is listed in table 2 on the next page.  Table 3 summarizes the comparison of the two designs. 

Trial

X1

X2

X3

X4

1

-1.00

-0.39

1.00

-0.45

2

-1.00

-0.39

1.00

-0.45

3

-0.01

-1.00

0.01

-0.10

4

-0.01

-1.00

0.01

-0.10

5

1.00

0.30

0.04

0.88

6

1.00

0.30

0.04

0.88

7

1.00

-1.00

-1.00

0.37

8

1.00

-1.00

-1.00

0.37

9

-0.06

0.12

-0.08

0.00

10

-0.06

0.12

-0.08

0.00

11

0.04

-0.01

1.00

0.43

12

0.00

-0.01

-1.00

-1.00

13

1.00

1.00

1.00

-0.03

14

-1.00

-1.00

0.19

1.00

15

1.00

-0.15

-0.05

-1.00

16

-1.00

1.00

-1.00

0.00

17

-1.00

-1.00

-1.00

-1.00

18

1.00

-1.00

1.00

-1.00

19

1.00

-1.00

1.00

1.00

20

-1.00

-0.25

-1.00

1.00

21

-1.00

1.00

0.04

-1.00

22

-0.03

1.00

1.00

-1.00

23

-1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

24

1.00

1.00

1.00

-0.92

25

0.34

1.00

-1.00

1.00

 I-optimal Process Design
Table 2  

In table 3, notice that the confidence limits on the random point for the conventional design are 60% wider than for the I-optimal design.  Also notice that the average confidence limit width for the conventional design is 54% wider than for the I-optimal design.  The integrated variance for the I-optimal design is also better.  The I-optimal design provides better precision of prediction in the same number of runs.

 

Conventional

I-Optimal

95% CL for random point

+/- 2.96

+/- 1.86

Average 95% CL

+/- 2.23

+/- 1.45

Integrated Variance (IV)

0.77

0.32

Summary
Table 3  

Case 2:  A Mixture Design in 4 Factors

Table 4 has a listing of the conventional mixture design for 4 factors.  It has 15 runs:  13 trials, 2 of which have 2 replicates each.  The limits on the factors are,  

            X1 = 0.740 - 0.890
            X2 = 0.030 - 0.130
            X3 = 0.055 - 0.160
            X4 = 0.025 - 0.035.  

The implied constraint for a mixture is X1 + X2 + X3 + X4 = 1.000.  The model is a three factor (X2, X3, X4) quadratic model with all 2 factor interactions.  X1 is implied by the constraint.  The corresponding I-optimal design is listed in table 5.  Table 6 shows a comparison of the two designs.

Trial

X1

X2

X3

X4

9

0.835

0.030

0.100

0.035

1

0.740

0.075

0.160

0.025

6

0.740

0.065

0.160

0.035

11

0.780

0.130

0.055

0.035

12

0.830

0.080

0.055

0.035

10

0.780

0.030

0.160

0.030

5

0.740

0.130

0.095

0.035

8

0.790

0.080

0.100

0.030

2

0.790

0.130

0.055

0.025

4

0.785

0.030

0.160

0.025

2

0.790

0.130