Blocking Two‐level Factorial Experiments

Blocking is commonly used in experimental design to eliminate unwanted variation by creating more homogeneous conditions for experimental treatments within each block. While it has been a standard practice in experimental design, blocking fractional factorials still presents many challenges due to differences between treatment and blocking variables. Lately, new design criteria such as the total number of clear effects and fractional resolution have been proposed to design blocked two‐level fractional factorial experiments. This article presents a flexible matrix representation for two‐level fractional factorials that will allow experimenters and software developers to block such experiments based on any design criterion that is suitable with the experimental conditions. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.