Using Design of Experiments to Characterize the Design Space of “Like-for- Like” Packaging Equipment

Abstract

Industries with high volume demand tend to have various equipments that can perform the same task. Many of these tasks produce itemsthat in order to sample them would require destroying them. Validation is necessary in this case. Using Design of Experiments, various treatments are applied, during a validation process, to the equipment, to prove that the outcome from each one will be repeatable, reproducible, expected and within the acceptable range. By using equipments from the same manufacturer, same brand, same model, and same capacity but in another location of the plant, the industries use the term “like-for-like” to lower or ease the validation process. However, the design space used by the manufacturer of the equipments allows it to provide the same equipment various times but with difference in their expected outcome; resulting in differences in the items produced by the industries in those equipments. Key Terms - Design of Experiments, Design Space, “Like-for-Like”, Validation.