A Note on Early Termination in the 2^(k-p) Designs

A complete factorial experiment can resolve problems that occur in experiments that to determine suitable tolerances for the factors in a manufacturing process. Two-level fractional factorial designs have been widely used to investigate the effect of factors in which several factors are involved. In many circumstances, the experiment may be stopped before all the points have been run. This article argues that one should not arrange the points of the experiment in random order. Instead, one should consider adjusting the run order to protect against the risk of early termination, that is, a systematic run order should be carefully applied to the case. In this article, we will use semi-folding design as examples to illustrate the idea of how to take advantage of the sequential run order.