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Other Designs

Which design is appropriate?

A company that purchases its raw material from three
different suppliers. The company wishes to determine
whether the purity of the raw material is the same from
each supplier. There are four batches of raw material
available from each supplier, and three determinations of
purity are to be taken from each batch.

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Why cant we use a factorial design?

If this were a factorial, then batch 1 would always refer to the same batch, batch 2
would always refer to the same batch, and so on.

This is clearly not the case because the batches from each supplier are unique for
that particular supplier.

That is, batch 1 from supplier 1 has no connection with batch 1 from any other

In fact, to emphasize the fact that the batches from each supplier are different
batches, we can renumber the batches as 1, 2, 3, and 4 from supplier 1; 5, 6, 7,
and 8 from supplier 2; and 9, 10, 11, and 12 from supplier 3.

If the levels of the factor can be renumbered arbitrarily, then the factor is
nested.

Nested Designs

In certain multifactor experiments, the levels of one

factor (e.g., factor B) are similar but not identical for
different levels of another factor (e.g., A).

Such an arrangement is called a nested, or hierarchical,

design, with the levels of factor B nested under the levels
of factor A.

This is a two-stage nested design, with batches nested

under suppliers.

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Two Stage Nested Design

Mathematical Model for Nested Designs

=

= 1,2, ,
= 1,2, ,
= 1,2, ,

There are a levels of factor A, b levels of factor B nested under

each level of A, and n replicates.
The subscript j(i) indicates that the jth level of factor B is nested
under the ith level of factor A.
It is convenient to think of the replicates as being nested
within the combination of levels of A and B; thus, the subscript
(ij)k is used for the error term.

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ANOVA Table for the Two Stage Nested Design

SST = SSA + SSB(A) + SSE

SSB(A) is the sum of squares between levels of B for each level of A, summed
over all the levels of A.

Illustration
Consider a company that buys raw material in batches
from three different suppliers. The purity of this raw
material varies considerably, which causes problems in
manufacturing the finished product. We wish to
determine whether the variability in purity is attributable
to differences between the suppliers.
Four batches of raw material are selected at random from
each supplier, and three determinations of purity are
made on each batch. (This is a two-stage nested design.)
The data, after coding by subtracting 93, are shown in the
table.

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Illustration The Data

Data Analyzed as a Mixed Model

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Analysis as a Mixed Model

This analysis indicates that batches differ significantly and

that there is a significant interaction between batches
and suppliers.
However, it is difficult to give a practical interpretation of
the (batches x suppliers) interaction.

For example, does this significant interaction mean that the

supplier effect is not constant from batch to batch?
Furthermore, the significant interaction coupled with the nonsignificant supplier effect could lead the analyst to conclude
that suppliers really differ but their effect is masked by the
significant interaction.

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Analyzed as a Nested Design

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Practical Implications

The objective of the experimenter is to find the source of the

variability in raw material purity.

If it results from differences among suppliers, we may be able

to solve the problem by selecting the best supplier.

However, that solution is not applicable here because the

major source of variability is the batch-to-batch purity
variation within suppliers.

Therefore, we must attack the problem by working with the

suppliers to reduce their batch-to-batch variability.

This may involve modifications to the suppliers production

processes or their internal quality assurance system.
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Split Plot Designs

In some multifactor factorial experiments, we may be

unable to completely randomize the order of the runs.
This often results in a generalization of the factorial
design called a split-plot design.

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Illustration

Consider a paper manufacturer who is interested in three different

pulp preparation methods (the methods differ in the amount of
hardwood in the pulp mixture) and four different cooking
temperatures for the pulp and who wishes to study the effect of
these two factors on the tensile strength of the paper.
Each replicate of a factorial experiment requires 12 observations,
and the experimenter has decided to run three replicates. This will
require a total of 36 runs.
The experimenter decides to conduct the experiment as follows.

A batch of pulp is produced by one of the three methods under study.

Then this batch is divided into four samples, and each sample is cooked
at one of the four temperatures.
Then a second batch of pulp is made up using another of the three
methods. This second batch is also divided into four samples that are
tested at the four temperatures.
The process is then repeated, until all three replicates (36 runs) of the
experiment are obtained.

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Illustration

Initially, we might consider this to be a factorial experiment with three levels of

preparation method (factor A) and four levels of temperature (factor B).

If this is the case, then the order of experimentation within each replicate should
be completely randomized.

That is, we should randomly select a treatment combination (a preparation method and a
temperature) and obtain an observation, then we should randomly select another
treatment combination and obtain a second observation, and so on, until all 36
observations have been taken.

However, the experimenter did not collect the data this way. He made up a batch of pulp
and obtained observations for all four temperatures from that batch.

Because of the economics of preparing the batches and the size of the batches, this is the
only feasible way to run this experiment.

A completely randomized factorial experiment would require 36 batches of pulp, which is

completely unrealistic.

The split-plot design requires only 9 batches total.

The split-plot design has resulted in considerable experimental efficiency.

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Illustration

In this split-plot design we have 9 whole plots.

Each whole plot is divided into four parts called subplots (or splitplots) and one temperature is assigned to each.

The preparation methods are called the whole plot or main treatments.

Temperature is called the subplot treatment.

It is best to assign the factor we are most interested in to the subplots

Notice that the two factors were essentially applied at different

times. Consequently, a split-plot design can be viewed as two
experiments combined or superimposed on each other.

One experiment has the whole-plot factor applied to the large

experimental units (or it is a factor whose levels are hard to change)
The other experiment has the subplot factor applied to the smaller
experimental units (or it is a factor whose levels are easy to change).

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Origin of the Split Plot Design

The split-plot design has an agricultural heritage, with the

whole plots usually being large areas of land and the
subplots being smaller areas of land within the large
areas.
For example, several varieties of a crop could be planted
in different fields (whole plots), one variety to a field.
Then each field could be divided into, say, four subplots,
and each subplot could be treated with a different type of
fertilizer.
Here the crop varieties are the main treatments and the
different fertilizers are the sub-treatments.
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