Minimum-Aberration Two-Level Fractional Factorial Split-Plot Designs

Abstract

It is often impractical to perform the experimental runs of a fractional factorial in a completely random order, In these cases, restrictions on the randomization of the experimental trials are imposed and the design is said to have a split-plot structure. We rank these fractional factorial split-plot designs similarly to fractional factorials using the aberration criterion to find the minimum-aberration design. We introduce an algorithm that constructs the set of all nonisomorphic two-level fractional factorial split-plot designs more efficiently than existing methods. The algorithm can be easily modified to efficiently produce sets of all nonisomorphic fractional factorial designs, fractional factorial designs in which the number of levels is a power of a prime, and fractional factorial split-plot designs in which the number of levels is a power of a prime.