Design of Experiments 6: Evolutionary Operation (EVOP)

his is another column in the ongoing series on DoE, this time dealing with a method for exploring the response of a process to input or control factors whilst continuing to run it in a near normal fashion. The aim is to optimise process conditions without taking the system off-line. The obvious application is to some type of industrial production process, and what follows is written as though this was the case, though the ideas would be applicable to any process in need of optimisation.