This paper was presented at the Journal of Quality Technology Session at the 47th Annual Fall Technical Conference

of the Chemical
and Process Industries Division and Statistics Division of the American Society for Quality and the Section on Physical & Engineering
Sciences of the American Statistical Association in El Paso, Texas, October 1617, 2003.

Robust Parameter Design with

Categorical Noise Variables
WILLIAM A. BRENNEMAN and WILLIAM R. MYERS
The Procter and Gamble Company, Mason, OH 45040
Robust parameter design has been extensively studied and applied in industrial experiments over the
past twenty years. The purpose of robust parameter design is to design a process or product that is robust
to uncontrollable changes in the noise variables. In many applications the noise variables are continuous,
for which several assumptions, often dicult to verify in practice, are necessary to estimate the response
variance. In this paper, we consider the case where the noise variable is categorical in nature. We discuss
the impact that the assumptions for continuous and categorical noise variables have on the robust settings
and on the overall process variance estimate. A designed experiment from industry is presented to illustrate
the results.

Introduction

factors within the system that are very dicult to

control during the normal process or design of the
product and may change without warning. Thus, the
noise variables add unwanted variation into the system. Hence, the goal of robust parameter design is
to reduce or eliminate the eect of this source of variability by selecting the levels of the control variables
in such a way as to achieve robustness to changes
in the noise variables. The following are some general examples of noise variables: environmental conditions like temperature and humidity in a manufacturing process, variation in consumer use of a product, variation in raw materials, and tolerance in the
control variables.

parameter design has been studied and

R
used extensively over the last twenty years.
Genichi Taguchi introduced the robust parameter deOBUST

sign method of reducing process or product variation.

Robust parameter design is used to select settings
of the control factors that dampen the eect of uncontrollable factors (see, for example, Taguchi and
Wu (1980), Taguchi (1986), and Phadke (1989)). In
robust parameter design the variables can be classied into two basic groups: control variables and
noise variables. The control variables are those factors within a system that remain unchanged once
their levels are selected and therefore do not add
unwanted variation. The noise variables are those

Reducing variation through robust parameter design can be easily illustrated through the control
noise interaction plot given in Figure 1. Note that
at the high level of the control variable the response
variable is insensitive to the changes in the noise variable. However, at the low level of the control variable
the variation in the response is large when the noise
variable uctuates between the low and high level. In
this simple case one would set the control variable at
the high level in order to make the response variable
robust to changes in the noise variable.

Dr. Brenneman is a member of the Statistical Quality

Control Section within the Biometrics and Statistical Sciences
Department. He is a Member of ASQ. His e-mail address is
brenneman.wa@pg.com.
Dr. Myers is Head of the Statistical Quality Control Section within the Biometrics and Statistical Sciences Department. He is a Member of ASQ. His e-mail address is myers.
wr@pg.com.

Vol. 35, No. 4, October 2003

335

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336

WILLIAM A. BRENNEMAN AND WILLIAM R. MYERS

For our discussion of the variance of a response

surface model, we look at the case when the response
surface model contains linear eects for both control
and noise factors, quadratic eects for control factors, and control-by-noise interactions. Such a model
can be expressed as
y(x, z) = 0 + x
+ x
Bx + z
+ x
z + , (1)

FIGURE 1. Control-by-Noise Interaction Plot.

There is no opportunity to improve robustness unless there are control variables that interact with the
noise variables. As previously discussed, the control
noise interaction plot illustrates the process variation at varying levels of the control variable. Those
control variables that inuence the process variation,
i.e., interact with the noise variables, are often called
dispersion factors or dispersion eects. Control variables that have an eect on the process mean are often called location factors or location eects. In addition, while standard denitions of adjustment factors
or adjustment eects may not exist, in this paper we
dene control variables that aect the mean, but do
not aect the variance, as adjustment factors or adjustment eects. In general, the rst step is to identify the settings of the dispersion factors that reduce
or eliminate the eect of the noise variables. Then,
we use the adjustment factors to bring the mean on
target. However, there are situations when adjustment factors do not exist. These situations require
that trade-os be made between the goals of reducing variation and bringing the mean on target. Some
useful references, but certainly not an exhaustive list,
on robust parameter design include Shoemaker, Tsui,
and Wu (1991), Nair (1992), Myers, Khuri, and Vining (1992), Lucas (1994), Pledger (1996), Borkowski
and Lucas (1997), Wu and Hamada (2000), and Myers and Montgomery (2002).

The Variance Response Model

Response surface methodology (RSM) has been
used extensively in practice to solve robust parameter design problems. In this approach, a designed
experiment is performed in order to model the relationship between the control and noise factors and
the response.

Journal of Quality Technology

where (rx 1) and (rz 1) are vectors of coecients for the control and noise variable main eects,
B (rx rx ) is a matrix of quadratic coecients for the
control variables, (rx rz ) is a matrix of controlby-noise interaction coecients, and i N (0, 2 ).
By treating the noise variable z = (z1 , z2 , . . . , zrz )

as a random variable (Myers, Khuri, and Vining
(1992)), the variance of Equation (1) is given by
Varz [y(x, z)] = (
+ x
)Varz (z)(
+ x
)
+ 2 ,
(2)
where Varz (z) is the variance-covariance matrix of z.
It is instructive to examine a simple case. We
consider the case of the response surface model in
Equation (1) for which there is one control variable
and two continuous noise variables. Thus, we have
y(x, z1 , z2 ) = 0 + 1 x + 2 x2 + 1 z1 + 2 z2
+ 1 xz1 + 2 xz2 + .

(3)

with variance given by

2

Varz [y(x, z1 , z2 )] = (1 + x1 ) Var(z1 )

2

+ (2 + x2 ) Var(z2 )
+ 2 (1 + x1 ) (2 + x2 ) Cov(z1 , z2 )
+ 2 .

(4)

The assumptions that are generally made when dealing with continuous noise variables stipulate that certain information about the distribution of z is known.
That is, the variance-covariance matrix of z is known.
Quite often, the assumption is also made that the covariance between noise variables is zero. In that case,
Equation (4) can be simplied to
2

Varz [y(x, z1 , z2 )] = (1 + x1 ) Var(z1 )

2

+ (2 + x2 ) Var(z2 )

(5)

+ 2 .
This leads to a very appealing interpretation as to
how robustness can be obtained. Robustness can
be achieved by nding areas on the response surface where the response is insensitive to changes in
the noise variable. This translates into nding control factor settings that make the partial derivatives
with respect to the zi values as small as possible. In

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ROBUST PARAMETER DESIGN WITH CATEGORICAL NOISE VARIABLES

the simple case given above, the partial derivative

with respect to zi is given by i + xi . By making
this close to zero, the response will not change very
much relative to changes in zi (see Nair (1992) and
Myers and Montgomery (2002, p. 563)).

The interpretation of the variance response model

given by Equations (2) and (6) is not as intuitive as
the interpretation for continuous noise variables. A
more intuitive way to express Varz [y(x, z)] can be
found through the following calculation. Since the
average response over the noise variable is

Categorical Noise Variable

There are situations where the noise variable(s)
can be categorical in nature (e.g., dierent suppliers
or dierent brands of equipment). Since two or more
categorical variables can always be expressed as a
single categorical variable, we may assume without
loss of generality that there is a single noise variable
with rz + 1 categories for which P(Category i) = pi .
In this situation, there are rz degrees of freedom for
making comparisons. The variance operator in this
case under the model in Equation (1) will be identical to Equation (2). However, since the distribution
of the noise variables is multinomial, the variancecovariance matrix is fully characterized as long as
the pi values are known. In fact, consider the case
when dummy variables are used with category rz + 1
as the baseline:


1, Category = i
zi =
i = 1, 2, . . . rz ,
0, otherwise
then, the variance-covariance matrix is given by
Varz (z) =
p (1 p )
p1 p2

p1 prz
1
1
p2 (1 p2 )
p2 prz
p2 p1

.
.
.
..
.

..
..
..
.
prz p1
prz p2
prz (1 prz )
(6)
Again, it is instructive to examine a simple case. We
consider one control variable and one 3-level categorical noise variable. This case is analogous to the one
control variable and two continuous noise variables
case given in Equation (3). Using dummy variables
with category 3 as the baseline, the variance response
model is
2

Varz [y(x, z)] = (1 + x1 ) p1 (1 p1 )

2

+ (2 + x2 ) p2 (1 p2 )
2 (1 + x1 ) (2 + x2 ) p1 p2
+ 2 .

(7)

We note that in the case of a categorical noise variable, the variance model is fully specied as long as
the pi values are known.

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337

Ez [y(x, z)] =

r
z +1

pi y(x, Category = i),

(8)

i=1

we can express the variance by

Varz [y(x, z)] =

r
z +1

pi y(x, Category = i)

i=1

r
z +1

2
pi y(x, Category = i)

i=1
2

+ .
From this expression, we can see that the minimization of Varz [y(x, z)] over the control variable space
will focus on categories that have a high probability
of being present, on categories that have a mean response that is far from the average response, or on
both. This expression for Varz [y(x, z)] is equivalent
to the variance operator of the linear model given by
Equations (2) and (6), but has a much more appealing interpretation, in that the minimization is only
trying to force the mean response for each of the categories to be as close to one another as possible.
It is clear that the robust settings may vary with
changes in the pi values. For example, the pi values
may change because a given supplier has been eliminated, thereby changing the multinomial distribution. We consider the example depicted graphically
in Figure 2 for which there is a three level categorical noise variable and a two level control variable.
We note that when p1 = p2 = p3 = 1/3, the robust
setting would be the low level of the control variable. However, if the second category is eventually
eliminated (i.e., p1 = p3 = 1/2), then the robust setting changes to the high level of the control variable.
Therefore, it is possible for the robust setting to be
dependent on the values of pi . Furthermore, graphical analysis through an interaction plot for categorical noise variables is most useful when the pi values are equal. When the pi values are unequal, one
should be careful when interpreting interaction plots.
In this case, one may need to resort to numerical optimization. Shoemaker, Tsui, and Wu (1991) provided
an example where an interaction plot is used to nd

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WILLIAM A. BRENNEMAN AND WILLIAM R. MYERS

a weighted minimization problem, where the weights

are given by Var(z1 ) and Var(z2 ). Therefore, choice
of the weights (in this case the estimates of Var(z1 )
and Var(z2 )) can impact the selection of the robust
settings.

FIGURE 2. Example for which the Robust Setting Depends on the pi Values. When p1 = p2 = p3 = 1/3,
the Robust Setting Would be the Low Level of the Control
Variable While When p1 = p3 = 1/2, the Robust Setting
Would be the High Level of the Control Variable (Depicted
by the Dashed Line).

control factor settings that make a process robust

to a categorical noise factor where the pi values are
equal.

Impact of Continuous and Categorical

Noise Variable Assumptions
In the case of the continuous noise variable, the
coding of the noise variables is generally done so that
the mean is centered at zero and the levels are 1
standard deviations (or possibly 2 standard deviations) from the mean. However, the noise variable
mean and variance do need to be estimated from observational process data, and the errors in estimating
these quantities can make a dierence in the subsequent analysis. When there is only one continuous
noise variable, the choice of the robust setting is not
aected by the estimated noise variance. But, in
many situations, the resulting estimate of the overall process variance is of importance, and its estimate will be aected by the estimated noise variance.
However, in the case of two or more continuous noise
variables, both the robust setting and the overall process variance estimate can be aected by the variance
and covariance estimates of the noise variables. To
see this, we consider the case given in Equation (5) of
two continuous noise variables where the covariance
is assumed to be equal to zero. In this case, minimization of the process variance can be thought of as

Journal of Quality Technology

There are fewer assumptions required for the categorical noise variable than for the continuous noise
variable. As previously stated, the assumption is often made that continuous noise variables are uncorrelated. However, there can be situations where continuous noise variables are correlated (e.g., temperature and humidity), and not taking this into account
can impact the results. In contrast, the variance response model is fully specied for a single categorical
noise variable as long as the pi values are known. In
practice, the probability of observing a given category of a categorical noise variable will quite often
be known or well estimated. For example, the customer will often have an agreement or arrangement
with the suppliers.

Package Seal Optimization

and Robustness Example
Engineers within Procter and Gambles Packaging Development Department wanted to develop optimum and robust settings for the control variables
for a new sealing process. The particular process
involves sealing a package that requires high-speed
hermetic seals. The response variable is maximum
peel strength. Maximum peel strength is a continuous response, which measures the maximum amount
of strength that is required to open the package. If
too little force is required to open the package, then
there is a greater chance of a leak occuring in the
package. On the other hand, if too much force is required, then it will be dicult for the consumer to
open the package. Maximum peel strength is measured in pounds of force (lbf). The ultimate goal is
to develop optimum and robust settings for the control variables so that maximum peel strength will be
on target.
The engineers wanted to study the eects of temperature, pressure, and speed on the maximum peel
strength and ultimately select settings of these variables for the new sealing process. These three independent variables are considered control factors.
Dierent suppliers will furnish the packaging material used in the sealing process. The engineers do
not want to have a unique set of manufacturing conditions for each packaging material. Therefore, it
is important to select the settings for temperature,

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ROBUST PARAMETER DESIGN WITH CATEGORICAL NOISE VARIABLES

339

TABLE 1. Variable Names and Ranges for the Package Seal Optimization and Robustness Example

Variable

Range

Temperature
Pressure
Speed
Supplier

193 C 230 C
2.2 Bar 3.2 Bar
32 cpm 50 cpm (cycles per minute)
S1 (p1 = 0.5), S2 (p2 = 0.25), S3 (p2 = 0.25)

pressure, and speed which are robust to supplier-tosupplier variation. Supplier 1 will be the main supplier, supplying material 50% of the time, while Suppliers 2 and 3 will each supply material 25% of the
time, respectively. Therefore, the supplier is considered to be a categorical noise variable. Table 1
provides the variable names, ranges, and units.
After discussing practical limitations such as resources and time, it was decided that a maximum
of 37 experimental runs could be performed. Therefore, a 37-run computer-generated design using Deciency was employed. The design was a combined
array, which allowed for the estimation of control
main eects, control control interaction eects,
control quadratic eects, noise main eects, and control noise interaction eects. The structural model
is given by
y = 0 +

3


j xj +

j=1

2


j zj +

j=1

3 


ij xi xj +

i=2 j<i
3 
2


3


jj x2j

j=1

mum peel strength contains pressure, speed, and supplier main eects along with the speed by supplier
interaction eect. The analysis of variance results
are given in Table 2, and the nal model estimates
are given in Table 3. The supplier noise variable was
coded using dummy variables with supplier 3 as the
reference. Since speed interacts with the supplier
noise variable, we classify speed as a dispersion factor. Since pressure signicantly aects the maximum
peel strength, but does not interact with the supplier,
pressure is classied as an adjustment factor.
The estimated model for predicted maximum peel
strength is given by
y(x, z) = 6.6735 0.6109xP 0.0078xS 2.111zS1
2.209zS2 + 0.0645xS zS1 + 0.0805xS zS2 .
From this we can calculate the estimated maximum
peel strength process mean given in Equation (8) to
be
z [y(x, z)] = p1 y(x, zS = 1, zS = 0)
E
1
2

ij xi zj + .

+ p2 y(x, zS1 = 0, zS2 = 1)

i=1 j=1

+ p3 y(x, zS1 = 0, zS2 = 0)

Some useful references on experimental design for

robust parameter design include Welch, Yu, Kang,
and Sacks (1990), Shoemaker, Tsui, and Wu (1991),
Montgomery (1991), Borkowski and Lucas (1997),
Borror and Montgomery (2000), and Bingham and
Li (2002).

= 0.5 (6.6735 0.6109xP 0.0078xS

2.111 + 0.0645xS )
+ 0.25 (6.6735 0.6109xP 0.0078xS
2.209 + 0.0805xS )
+ 0.25 (6.6735 0.6109xP 0.0078xS )
= 5.0658 0.6109xP + 0.0446xS ,

The nal least squares regression model for maxi-

(9)

TABLE 2. Maximum Peel Strength Eect Tests

Source
Pressure (Bar)
Speed (cpm)
Supplier
Speed (cpm)*Supplier

Vol. 35, No. 4, October 2003

DF

Sum of Squares

F Ratio

Prob > F

1
1
2
2

3.056
3.260
1.234
2.497

9.1678
9.7769
1.8508
3.7449

0.0050
0.0039
0.1746
0.0353

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WILLIAM A. BRENNEMAN AND WILLIAM R. MYERS

TABLE 3. Maximum Peel Strength Model Estimates

Term

Estimate

Intercept
Pressure (Bar)
Speed (cpm)
Supplier 1
Supplier 2
Supplier 1*Speed (cpm)
Supplier 2*Speed (cpm)

6.6735
0.6109
0.0078
2.1110
2.2090
0.0645
0.0805

and the estimated maximum peel strength process

variance given in Equations (2) and (6), and simplied in Equation (7), as
 z [y(x, z)] = (2.111 + 0.0645xS )2 p1 (1 p1 )
Var
2

+ (2.209 + 0.0805xS ) p2 (1 p2 )
2 (2.111 + 0.0645xS )
(2.209 + 0.0805xS ) p1 p2 +
2
2

= (2.111 + 0.0645xS ) 0.5(1 0.5)

2

+ (2.209 + 0.0805xS ) 0.25(1 0.25)

2 (2.111 + 0.0645xS )
(2.209 + 0.0805xS )
(0.5) (0.25) +
2 .

Std Error
1.040
0.202
0.021
1.297
1.344
0.031
0.032

t Ratio
6.42
3.03
0.36
1.63
1.64
2.07
2.54

Prob > |t|

<.0001
0.0050
0.7189
0.1140
0.1106
0.0469
0.0164

shows the interaction plot of speed by supplier. Note

that changes in predicted maximum peel strength between the dierent suppliers is dampened when the
speed is at 32 cpm.
The second step is to bring the maximum peel
strength mean as close to target (4.5 lbf) as possible
by nding an appropriate setting of pressure, the adjustment factor. From Equation (9), with speed set
at its robust setting of 32 cpm, we have
z [y(x, z)] = 5.0658 0.6109xP + 0.0446(32)
E
= 6.493 0.6109xP .

The rst step to nd a robust setting is to locate

the speed setting that minimizes the estimated maximum peel strength process variance. From the graph
of maximum peel strength process variance given in
Figure 3, we see that the maximum peel strength
process variance increases as the speed increases.
Therefore, in order to minimize the process variance
we set the speed at 32 cpm. In addition, Figure 4

In order to bring the maximum peel strength close

to 4.5 lbf, the pressure adjustment factor should be
set at 3.2 Bar (see Figure 5) for a predicted mean
of 4.54 lbf. Obviously, in the absence of adjustment
factors or as an alternative methodology, dual response or multiple response optimization procedures
could be used. Some useful references on optimization techniques include Derringer and Suich (1980),
Vining and Myers (1990), and Carlyle, Montgomery,
and Runger (2000).

FIGURE 3. Graph of the Maximum Peel Strength (MPS)

Process Variance.

FIGURE 4. Maximum Peel Strength Interaction Plot of

Speed and Supplier. Pressure = 3.2 Bar.

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ROBUST PARAMETER DESIGN WITH CATEGORICAL NOISE VARIABLES

341

References
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FIGURE 5. Pressure-by-Supplier Plot for Predicted Maximum Peel Strength. Speed = 32 cpm.

It is interesting to note that for this particular example the robust setting of 32 cpm does not change
when the pi values change. Looking at the interaction plot of speed by supplier given in Figure 4,
and noting that each pair-wise comparison of maximum peel strength between suppliers increases as the
speed increases, one can understand why this robust
setting does not vary with changes in the pi values.
However, as noted earlier, robust settings may vary
with changes in the pi values.

Conclusions
In this paper we described the use of robust parameter design in the case of categorical noise variables. Taking the variance operator over the response
surface model provided the variance response surface.
Since the distribution of categorical noise variables is
multinomial, the variance-covariance matrix is fully
known as long as the pi values are known. In addition, a more intuitive way to express the variance response surface was shown which illustrates that minimizing the variance response surface over the control
variable space can be thought of as nding levels of
the control variables that force the weighted mean
response for each of the categories to be as close to
one another as possible. Furthermore, the impact of
the assumptions for continuous and categorical noise
variables on subsequent analysis was discussed, and
it was shown that there are fewer assumptions necessary in the categorical noise variable case.

Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge Professor
Raymond H. Myers, Virginia Tech, as well as two
referees for their insightful comments that led to signicant improvement in the quality of this paper.

Key Words: Categorical Variables, Dispersion Effects, Noise Variables, Response Surface Methodology, Robust Design.

Vol. 35, No. 4, October 2003

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