Stat-Ease

I'm a Formulator

Are you new to mixture design of experiments (DOE) and not sure where to begin? Stat-Ease offers training, articles, books, software, online tutorials, newsletters, FAQs and DOE Resources, consulting services, and technical support to get you started. Whether you want to solve a specific quality problem, create the perfect product, improve your process, find a cheaper but equally good solution, or validate your process and procedures, Stat-Ease can help.

On-demand Webinar: A Crash Course in Mixture Design of Experiments

What is Mixture Design and What's In It for You? A Heads-Up from Stat-Ease Consultant Mark Anderson

“Early in my career as a chemical engineer working in process development, I discovered that many of the chemists in our research and development center—especially those most brilliant in their field—failed to appreciate the power of planned experimentation. Furthermore, they disliked the mathematical aspects of statistical analysis. To top off their design-of-experiment (DOE) phobia, these otherwise very capable chemists also dismissed predictive models based only on empirical data. Ironically, in the hands of subject matter experts like these elite chemists, the statistical methods of mixture design and analysis provide the means for rapidly converging on optimal compositions—the 'sweet spot' as I like to call it.

"This experience inspired me to begin work on detailing design and analysis of mixture experiments in a new book that fills in a major gap remaining after publication of DOE Simplified and RSM Simplified. This new 'how-to' book, Formulation Simplified, co-authored by Patrick Whitcomb and Martin Bezener, is based on the Stat-Ease workshop 'Mixture Design for Optimal Formulations' developed primarily by Pat. Readers of our third book will learn how to handle many ingredients simultaneously—not just one at a time, as dictated for time immemorial by 'the scientific method'. As they will see in example after example, one needn’t hold all else constant while changing only one thing. Instead, why not take advantage of the modern-day parallel processing schemes of mixture designs that provide multicomponent testing?

"After some months of work, I’ve established the WIIFM, that is, the 'what’s in it for me' that will encourage formulators to work through the more intense aspects of mixture design, response modeling, statistical analysis and numerical optimization. It’s taken me three chapters to do this—it’s a tough nut to crack! Pat, Martin and I are offering this material to you as A Primer on Mixture Design: What’s In It for Formulators?. Feel free to download it for your education on this powerful tool in the DOE kit. All I ask is that if you like what you see and become convinced that this primer will be valuable for your colleagues, please send them the link.”

Formulation Training

The best way to learn design of experiments for formulation is to attend our workshop, Mixture Design for Optimal Formulations. In this computer-intensive workshop, formulators learn how to use mixture designs to discover key ingredient combinations that maximize product performance. During this workshop you will:

Discover what defines a mixture experiment
Set up simplex designs
Augment and evaluate design quality
Select appropriate mixture models
Generate contour plots in triangular space
Design for constrained mixture variables
Optimize product formulas
Combine mixture and process variables
Deal with hard-to-change factors using split-plot designs
Improve process understanding with mixture-amount, mixture-categoric, and combined-mixture designs

Books

To get formulators off to a good start we suggest:

Formulation Simplified: Finding the Sweet Spot through Design and Analysis of Experiments with Mixtures, by Anderson, Whitcomb, & Bezener—Formulation Simplified deviates significantly from all other statistical texts on design of experiments (DOE) for mixtures by making these powerful methods easy to study and fun to read. The authors provide a rich array of insightful case studies that illustrate the essentials of mixture DOE. Real-world examples are offered as problems at the end of many chapters for those who are serious about trying these new tools on their own.

Webinars

Stat-Ease offers free webinars on a variety of subjects several times during the year. Get more information and register here. Also on that page are listings of past webinars with recordings that you can view at your leisure.

Newsletters, FAQs and DOE Resources

Use the search bar above for answers to your specific questions. You will find a wealth of information in Mark Anderson's bi-monthly email newsletter, the DOE FAQ Alert. Sign up to receive the latest FAQ's, alerts to timely articles, free software updates, and interesting tidbits.

Stat-Ease offers a large collection of case studies and articles on DOE. Look for applications in your industry.