Empirical process optimization through response surface experiments and model building

In many industrial processes, there are more than two responses (i.e., yield, percent impurity, etc.) of interest, and it is desirable to determine the optimal levels of the factors (i.e., temperature, pressure, etc.) that influence the responses. Suppose the response relationships are assumed to be approximated by second-order polynomial regression models. The problems considered in this paper is, first, to propose how to select polynomial terms to fit the multivariate regression surfaces for a given set of data, and, second, to propose how to analyze the data to obtain an optimal operating condition for the factors. The proposed techniques were applied for empirical process optimization in a tire company in Korea. This case is presented as an illustration.