Some key things industrial engineers should know about experimental design

Experiments are fundamental to enhancing understanding of the complex industrial processes which we deal with every day. Experimental Design (ED) is a very powerful tool that assists engineers and scientist to discover a set of variables which are most important for a process and thereby provide a great insight into the way a process or system works. It is superior to traditional scientific approach or One‐Factor‐At‐A‐Time (OFAT) approach to experimentation, still often used today. This paper illustrates some fundamental and practical issues that every industrial engineer should know about ED. These issues include factor effects, interactions, response or quality characteristics, randomisation, replication, analysis of variance and contour plots. The paper also presents an example to demonstrate the above issues. The problems and gaps in ED in the state‐of‐the‐art will also be highlighted.