Statistical approaches in surface finishing. Part 3. Design-of-experiments

This paper is the third and final part of a short series of articles aimed towards describing some of the various statistical methods and approaches that have been used in surface finishing. Here, various types of Design-of-Experiments (DOE) techniques are described, such as full and fractional factorial design, central composite design, response surface methodology and Taguchi methods. Their application in the design of surface finishing related experiments are then reviewed, ending with a worked example of a two-level 2⁴ full factorial DOE.