The Waterborne Symposium

The use of Design of Experiment (DOE) methodologies in the industrial setting has gained a lot of interest in recent years and is being used more frequently.  There are several types of designs that can be used to decrease variation, improve quality and reduce costs, e.g., Taguchi Robust Product Design, Response Surface Methods, etc.  Typically, DOE is limited in industrial manufacturing to designs with less than 16 runs.  The results from these studies do not always account for long-term variation that occurs at the full-scale production level given the differences in process variation, raw materials, etc. over time.  One technique that attempts to account for long-term variation using the results of designed experimentation results is Evolutionary Operation (EVOP).  EVOP was first proposed by Box (1957).  The application of this technique in the wood products industries will be discussed with benefits and shortcomings highlighted.