Overview for Analyze Response Surface Design

Use Analyze Response Surface Design to model curvature in your data and identify factor settings that optimize the response. Usually, you use a response surface design after you have conducted a factorial or fractional factorial experiment and have identified the most important factors in your process. For more information, go to What are response surface designs, central composite designs, and Box-Behnken designs?.

Before you can analyze your data, you must use Create Response Surface Design (Central Composite), Create Response Surface Design (Box-Behnken) or Define Custom Response Surface Design to enter or define your design. You also need to have response data in the worksheet.

For example, an engineer wants to analyze the injection molding process for a plastic part. After performing a fractional factorial design to identify the important factors (temperature, pressure, cooling rate), the engineer uses a response surface design to analyze curvature in the data and find the best factor settings.