5. Process Improvement
5.6. Case Studies
5.6.2. Sonoluminescent Light Intensity Case Study

5.6.2.5.

Important Factors: Youden Plot

Purpose

The DOE Youden plot is used to distinguish between important and unimportant factors.

Sample Youden Plot

Conclusions from the Youden plot

We can make the following conclusions from the Youden plot.

1. In the upper left corner are the interaction term X1*X3 and the main effects X1 and X3.

2. In the lower right corner are the main effects X2 and X7 and the interaction terms X2*X3 and X1*X2.

3. The remaining terms are clustered in the center, which indicates that such effects have averages that are similar (and hence the effects are near zero), and so such effects are relatively unimportant.

4. On the far right of the plot, the confounding structure is given (e.g., 13: 13+27+46), which suggests that the information on X1*X3 (on the plot) must be tempered with the fact that X1*X3 is confounded with X2*X7 and X4*X6.