Experimental Design in Industry

The design of experiment and analysis of variance are techniques which have been developed mainly in connection with agricultural research. The majority of examples in textbooks on the subject are consequently drawn from this field. These techniques also apply to industrial and technological experimentation. The main purpose of this note is to emphasize that the conditions under which these techniques have to be applied in industry are in several respects essentially different from those prevailing in agriculture; and that these differences imply changes in the method of teaching, of analysis, and of presentation if we are to reap the full benefit and efficiency of these statistical methods in the industrial field.