A ruggedness test strategy for procedure related factors: experimental set-up and interpretation

A strategy to perform ruggedness tests for mainly procedure related factors is described. The different steps in the set-up of the experiments and in the interpretation of the results are given. The described strategy is based on a number of case studies and allows a statistical interpretation of the significance of the effects. It was implemented in a software tool. This original strategy was completed with a number of minimal screening designs which reduce the number of experiments to perform, but in consequence only allow a limited or no statistical interpretation of the effects. Some of the minimal designs are expandable to designs with characteristics similar to those of the original strategy. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.