Design and Modeling Strategies for Mixture-of-Mixtures Experiments

In mixture-of-mixtures experiments major components are defined as the components which themselves are mixtures of some other components, called minor components. Sometimes components are divided into different categories where each category is called a major component and the components within a major component become minor components. The special structure of the mixture-of-mixtures experiment makes the design and modeling approaches different from a typical mixture experiment. In this article we propose a new model called the major–minor model to overcome some of the limitations of the commonly used multiple-Scheffé model. We also provide a strategy for designing experiments that are much smaller in size than those based on the existing methods. We then apply the proposed design and modeling approach to a mixture-of-mixtures experiment conducted to formulate a new potato crisp. This article has supplementary material online.