Search results
1 – 10 of over 84000The purpose of this paper is to address misconceptions about the design of experiments (DoE) usefulness, avoid bad practices and foster processes’ efficiency and products’ quality…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to address misconceptions about the design of experiments (DoE) usefulness, avoid bad practices and foster processes’ efficiency and products’ quality in a timely and cost-effective manner with this tool.
Design/methodology/approach
To revisit and discuss the hindrances to DoE usage as well as bad practices in using this tool supported on the selective literature from Web of Science and Scopus indexed journals.
Findings
A set of recommendations and guidelines to mitigate DoE hindrances and avoid common errors or wrong decisions at the planning, running and data analysis phases of DoE are provided.
Research limitations/implications
Errors or wrong decisions in planning, running and analyzing data from statistically designed experiments are always possible so the expected results from DoE usage are not always 100 percent guaranteed.
Practical implications
Novice and intermediate DoE users have another perspective for developing and improving their “test and learn” capability and be successful with DoE. To appropriately plan and run statistically designed experiments not only save the user of DoE from incorrect decisions and depreciation of their technical competencies as they can optimize processes’ efficiency and products’ quality (reliability, durability, performance, robustness, etc.) in a structured, faster and cheaper way at the design and manufacturing stages.
Social implications
DoE usefulness will be increasingly recognized in industry and academy and, as consequence, better products can be made available for consumers, business performance can improve, and the link between industry and academy can be strengthened.
Originality/value
A supplemental perspective on how to succeed with DoE and foster its usage among managers, engineers and other technical staff is presented.
Details
Keywords
Jiju Antony, Stavros Karamperidis, Frenie Antony and Elizabeth A. Cudney
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the power of experimental design as a technique to understand and evaluate the most important factors which influence teaching…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the power of experimental design as a technique to understand and evaluate the most important factors which influence teaching effectiveness for a postgraduate course in a higher education (HE) context.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology involves the execution of a case study in the form of an experiment in a business school setting. The experiment was carried out with the assistance of over 100 postgraduate students from 26 countries. The data were collected over a two year period (2015 and 2016) from a postgraduate course offered by the same tutor for repeatability reasons.
Findings
The key findings of the experiment have clearly indicated that students’ perceptions of teaching effectiveness based on intuition and guesswork are not identical to the outcomes from a simple designed experiment. Moreover, the results of the experiment provided a greater stimulus for the wider applications of the technique to other processes across the case study HE sector.
Research limitations/implications
One of the limitations of the study is that the experiment was conducted for a popular postgraduate course. It would be beneficial to understand the results of the experiment for less popular postgraduate courses in the university in order to drive improvements. Moreover, this research was conducted only for postgraduate courses and the results may vary for undergraduate courses. This would be an interesting study to understand the differences in the factors between undergraduate and postgraduate teaching effectiveness.
Practical implications
The outcome of this experiment would help everyone who is involved in teaching to understand the factors and their influences to improve students’ satisfaction scores during the delivery of teaching.
Originality/value
This paper shows how experimental design as a pure manufacturing technique can be extended to a HE setting.
Details
Keywords
Glenn W. Harrison and E. Elisabet Rutström
We review the experimental evidence on risk aversion in controlled laboratory settings. We review the strengths and weaknesses of alternative elicitation procedures, the strengths…
Abstract
We review the experimental evidence on risk aversion in controlled laboratory settings. We review the strengths and weaknesses of alternative elicitation procedures, the strengths and weaknesses of alternative estimation procedures, and finally the effect of controlling for risk attitudes on inferences in experiments.
Jiju Antony, Daniel Perry, Chengbo Wang and Maneesh Kumar
This paper aims to illustrate an application of Taguchi method of experimental design (TMED) for the development of a new ignition coil for an automotive vehicle.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to illustrate an application of Taguchi method of experimental design (TMED) for the development of a new ignition coil for an automotive vehicle.
Design/methodology/approach
The application of TMED for optimisation of manufacturing processes has been widely published in the existing literature. However, the applications of TMED in the design and development of new products are not yet widely reported. This case study presents the results of a designed experiment which utilises a 16‐trial experiment to study 14 design parameters and one interaction. The case study strictly follows a systematic and disciplined methodology outlined in the paper.
Findings
The optimal settings of the critical design parameters are determined. The optimal settings have resulted in increased customer satisfaction, improved market share and low defect rate in the hands of customers.
Research limitations/implications
Although the optimal levels are determined from one large experiment, it was unable to determine the true optimal values of each design parameter.
Practical implications
Manufacturers may use TMED to optimise processes (either design or manufacturing) without expensive and time‐consuming experimentation. This case study demonstrates the true power of a well planned and designed experiment over the traditional varying one‐factor‐at‐a‐time approach to experimentation which is rather unreliable, not cost‐effective and may lead to false optimal conditions.
Originality/value
The paper provides an excellent resource for those people who are involved in the design optimisation of a new product.
Details
Keywords
Robin Bouwman and Stephan Grimmelikhuijsen
Based on previous inventories, the purpose of this paper is to extend the knowledge on public administration experiments by focusing on their experimental type, design, sample…
Abstract
Purpose
Based on previous inventories, the purpose of this paper is to extend the knowledge on public administration experiments by focusing on their experimental type, design, sample type and realism levels and external validity. The aim is to provide an overview of experimental public administration and formulate potential ways forward.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors examine the current state of experimental public administration, by looking at a systematic selection of ISI ranked experimental publications in major public administration journals (1992-2014) and recommend ways forward based on this review.
Findings
The review indicates a rise in experimentation in public administration in recent years, this can be attributed mostly to some subfields of public administration. Furthermore, most experiments in public administration tend to have relatively simple designs, high experimental realism and a focus on external validity. Experimental public administration can be strengthened by increasing diversification in terms of samples, experimental designs, experimental types and substantive scope. Finally, the authors recommend to better utilize experiments to generate usable knowledge for practitioners and to replicate experiments to improve scientific rigour.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to experimental public administration by drawing on a systematic selection of papers and assessing them in depth. By means of a transparent and systematic selection of publications, various venues or ways forward are presented.
Details
Keywords
Purpose – What role did economic experiments play in creating value in the commercial market for wireless Internet access? Rosenberg (1992, p. 181) defines such experiments…
Abstract
Purpose – What role did economic experiments play in creating value in the commercial market for wireless Internet access? Rosenberg (1992, p. 181) defines such experiments broadly, “to include experimentation with new forms of economic organization as well as the better-known historical experiments that have been responsible for new products and new manufacturing technologies.”
Design/methodology/approach – The chapter provides an overview of the experience of a number of firms, focusing on the period between the late 1990s and early part of the 21st century, when the technology first blossomed in commercial markets. The chapter uses the experience of Lucent and Intel as primary illustrations of key concepts, and the chapter discusses how the framework generalizes beyond the experience of these two firms.
Findings – The distinction between directed and undirected experiments helps understand events in the evolution of Wi-Fi's value. They also bring new perspective to an extensive debate in communications policy about the best way to assign and allocate spectrum, focusing on the importance of the regulatory decision to provide space in which experiments can take place.
Originality/value – This framework has value for business history of the commercial Internet. This lens stresses the importance of preserving discretion to move business away from applications with low value, namely, away from allocations that used a conceptualization of the technology founded on a poor-use case, which later lessons showed had lower value than alternatives.
Details
Keywords
Marit Risberg Ellekjær and Søren Bisgaard
Experimental design methods are tools for conducting informative, time‐ and cost‐effective experiments. Used during product development, these methods can contribute to building…
Abstract
Experimental design methods are tools for conducting informative, time‐ and cost‐effective experiments. Used during product development, these methods can contribute to building quality into products as well as shortening the development cycle time. These techniques make it possible to study the effect of many factors (parameters) simultaneously, to select the factor combination that results in both improved quality and reduced cost, and hence allow for the development of reliable and robust products of high quality. In addition, these methods provide a systematic approach for problem solving during the product development process. This article provides a non‐technical discussion of the role of experimentation and the advantage of using experimental design during product development. Different experimental design methods and examples of their application during product development will also be presented.
Details
Keywords
This paper reviews the current literature on theoretical and methodological issues in discrete choice experiments, which have been widely used in non-market value analysis, such…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper reviews the current literature on theoretical and methodological issues in discrete choice experiments, which have been widely used in non-market value analysis, such as elicitation of residents' attitudes toward recreation or biodiversity conservation of forests.
Design/methodology/approach
We review the literature, and attribute the possible biases in choice experiments to theoretical and empirical aspects. Particularly, we introduce regret minimization as an alternative to random utility theory and sheds light on incentive compatibility, status quo, attributes non-attendance, cognitive load, experimental design, survey methods, estimation strategies and other issues.
Findings
The practitioners should pay attention to many issues when carrying out choice experiments in order to avoid possible biases. Many alternatives in theoretical foundations, experimental designs, estimation strategies and even explanations should be taken into account in practice in order to obtain robust results.
Originality/value
The paper summarizes the recent developments in methodological and empirical issues of choice experiments and points out the pitfalls and future directions both theoretically and empirically.
Details
Keywords
Athanasis Karoulis, Panagiotis Sfetsos, Ioannis Stamelos, Lefteris Angelis and Andreas Pombortsis
This study is concerned with the formal assessment of a Distance Learning Environment (DLE) created to deliver a course on UML sequence diagrams to university‐level students…
Abstract
This study is concerned with the formal assessment of a Distance Learning Environment (DLE) created to deliver a course on UML sequence diagrams to university‐level students, divided into control and treatment groups. An ad‐hoc DLE was constructed to deliver instruction to the treatment group, while the control group was taught in a traditional face‐to‐face way. The main point of concern is whether a DLE can be as effective for the treatment group, as the faceto‐ face lecture is for the control group, in terms of gaining mastery on the domain. So, a controlled experiment was organized and executed, in order to measure the participants’ performance in both groups. The results have shown no statistically significant difference for both groups of students. So, it can be argued that in the context of this experiment and by following a DLE‐design close enough to the traditional face‐to‐face approach, one can obtain equally good results using distance learning as with the traditional system. However, a number of concerns remain and more work is needed to generalize the results of this work on other domains.
Details
Keywords
Dominik Jung, Marc Adam, Verena Dorner and Anuja Hariharan
Human lab experiments have become an established method in information systems research for investigating user behavior, perception and even neurophysiology. The purpose of this…
Abstract
Purpose
Human lab experiments have become an established method in information systems research for investigating user behavior, perception and even neurophysiology. The purpose of this paper is to facilitate experimental research by providing a practical guide on how to implement and conduct lab experiments in the freely available experimental platform Brownie.
Design/methodology/approach
Laying the groundwork of the tutorial, the paper first provides a brief overview of common design considerations for lab experiments and a generic session framework. Building on the use case of the widely used trust game, the paper then covers the different stages involved in running an experimental session and maps the conceptual elements of the study design to the implementation of the experimental software.
Findings
The paper generates findings on how computerized lab experiments can be designed and implemented. Furthermore, it maps out the design considerations an experimenter may take into account when implementing an experiment and organizing it along a session structure (e.g. participant instructions, individual and group interaction, state and trait questionnaires).
Originality/value
The paper reduces barriers for researchers to engage in experiment implementation and replication by providing a step-by-step tutorial for the design and implementation of human lab experiments.
Details