Experimental Design Project Proposal

1. Hamdy Mahmood
2. Salman Cheema
3. Md. Mahafuzur R Chy

Project: The name of the experiment will be Bread Baking experiment. We would like to know how
different types of yeasts, application of temperature and the differences of heat inside the oven affect the
swollen-ness of bread and what combination of yeast, temperature and inside-heat produces the most
swollen breads. We will use an appropriate scaling meter to measure the degree of swollen-ness of the
bread and will have the measurement in centimeters. The bread might sometimes not be swollen
uniformly, thus posing a difficulty in measurement. To overcome this, we will take 5 separate
measurements from each bread to check the swollen-ness, one on the center and 4 on sideways (in a
rectangular fashion) and average them to have the response.

We would have Split-split-plot design, with 3 replications or oven-runs. Whole plot is oven and whole
plot factor is “temperature”. Temperature has 3 levels – 350F, 400F and 450F. Split plot is batch of dough
and SP factor is “yeasts” with three levels Rabid, Fast and Active. Split-split-plot is “loaf” and SSP factor
is shelf with 3 levels, Top, Middle, and Bottom.

For each oven run, we will make three batches of dough, one from each yeast and three loaves from each
batch, one for each shelf. Thus we will have SPD(CRD,RCBD,RCBD) for this experiment.

Blocking Factor: No blocking factor would be used.

Subsampling: No subsampling is required.

Randomization Procedure:
The randomization procedure for the split-split plot arrangement consists of three parts:
1. Randomly assign whole plot treatments to whole plots based on the experimental design used.
2. Randomly assign subplot treatments to the subplots.
3. Randomly assign sub-subplot treatments to the sub-subplots.
CHECKLIST:

1. Objectives: As mentioned above, the objective of the experiment is to know the differences in
swollen-ness of breads based on the three treatment factors.

2. Sources of variability: The temperature, types of yeasts, differences of temperature among the shelves
and within the shelves, types of flour used, size of breads, differences arising from blending the materials
to make dough, the lag of time between making the unbaked bread and putting them into oven, the
measurements taken, the equipment of measurement etc.

Controlling sources of variability: Temperature, Types of yeasts and Differences of temperatures inside
the oven are WP, SP and SSP treatment factors respectively. We will use same type of flour (all-purpose
flour) for all breads. We will fix one person to make the dough, one person to make the breads and one
person to take the measurements. We will make the breads approximately equal in size. There will be a
fixed amount of time (say, 5 minutes) between finishing making all the breads and putting them into the
oven and randomization will take care of the variability arising from the time lag of making the bread and
putting them in oven. We will let the oven cool off after the first run before we start baking the 2nd set of
loaves.

3. Choice of experimental units and treatment allocation: Here “loaves” are experimental units for SSP,
“batches of dough” for SP and “ovens” for WP. We will have total 27 EU’s for SSP and 3 replications.

4. Measurements and Potential Difficulties: For measurement, we will use very thin steel-bar that takes
measurements in centimeters. Care will be taken so that all other sources of variability are controlled as
outlined in “controlling sources of variability”.

5. Pilot experiment: No pilot experiment will be performed since we already have the no. of observations
required.

6. Specify model:

Yijkl = µ + αi + ωil (Whole Plot)

+βj + αβ ij + spijl (Split Plot)
+ θk + (αθ)ik + (βθ)jk + sspijkl (Split-split plot)
where i, j, k, l = 1,2,3.

Y = The degree of swollen-ness, α = ovens, β = Types of yeasts, θ = shelves;

2 2 2
And, ωil ~ N(0, σ ω) , spijl ~ N(0, σ sp) and sspijkl ~ N(0, σ ssp), mutually independent.

 nalysis: SPD(CRD,RCBD,RCBD) will be used to analyze the data. We then test the hypotheses of
7 A
equality of means of different combinations and decide on the best combination that produces the most
swollen breads.

8. Calculate number of observations: We decided that we will have 27 EU’s for SSP, and 27 OU’s. Thus
we will have enough degrees of freedom for the error term.