Patent ID: 8612366

Claim:
A method of automatically designing a plurality of experiments for analyzing at least one data set from a process to determine a relationship of a plurality of process factors of interest to a process output of interest, the method comprising using a computer to carry out the steps of: eliciting input from a user to determine at least one characteristic of the data set including a quantity of the plurality of factors and whether one or more of the plurality of factors has greater than two levels; selecting a design from a plurality of experiment designs based on established conventions for each of the plurality of experiment designs, the design applicable to the elicited at least one characteristic of the data set; providing a design of experiments including a standard order of the experiments and a run order of the experiments, the design of experiments indicating the combinations of factors and levels for each experiment; and wherein the plurality of experiment designs includes a low resolution fractional factorial design and a high resolution fractional factorial design, and wherein selecting the design includes, in response to an indication of ruggedness, selection of the low resolution fractional factorial design, and, in response to an indication of screening, selection of the high resolution fractional factorial design.