BASIC DEFINITIONS

1. Experiment is a planned inquiry to obtain new facts or to confirm or to deny the

results of previous experiments.

2. Experimental unit is a unit of material (people, plot of land, animal, trees or leaves)
to which one application of a treatment is applied.

3. Treatment is a procedure whose effect is to be measured and compared with other

treatments. The specific level of a factor is also called treatment.

4. When a treatment is applied more than once in an experiment, it is said to be

replicated. Replication is the process of repeating a treatment on to another
experimental unit more than one.

5. Factor is the independent variable under study, a variable whose level are set by the
experimenter.

6. Factor level is the actual or particular value of a factor.

7. The difference among experimental units treated alike (receiving the same treatment)
is called experimental error.

8. Randomization is the process of allocating the experimental units in random order.

Or it is the process of performing the individual trials of the experiment in random
order.

9. Blocking is the technique used to increase the precisions of an experiment. A block

is a group of homogeneous experimental units.

10. Yield is the quantity of interest measured on experimental units.

11. Experimental Error is a measure of the sum of variation between plots or units
receiving same treatments

12. Design experiment is a study in which the experimenter controls the assignments or
elements to different treatment groups.

13. Observational study is a study in which the assignments or elements to different

treatments is voluntary and researcher simply observes the results of the study.

14. Measurement unit is actual / response unit the actual objects on which the response
is measure.

Importance of experiments
• Reduce time to design/develop new products & processes
• Improve performance of existing processes
• Improve reliability and performance of products
• Achieve product & process robustness
• Evaluation of materials, design alternatives, setting component & system tolerances,
etc.
BASIC PRINCIPLES OF EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN

RANDOMIZATION
Purpose of Randomization
i) By properly randomization, it assists in averaging out the effects of extraneous factor
that may be present.
ii) Randomization also can eliminate bias.
iii) It is also ensure independence among data.

REPLICATION
Purpose of Replication
i) It allows the experimenter to obtain an estimate of the experimental error.
ii) Can increase the precision of the experiment.
iii) To ensure consistency in their result
iv) If the sample mean is used to estimate the effect on a factor in the experiment,
replication permits the experimenter to obtain a more precise estimate of this effect.

BLOCKING
Purpose of Blocking
i) Blocking can increase the precision of the treatment.
ii) It can also increase the information from the experiment.

Experimental Error can be control by

i) the proper use of experimental design
ii) the use of concomitant variables.
iii) the proper choice of size and shapes of experimental units.

Three general types of errors.

i) Human error
ii) Systematic error
iii) Random error