Exact Designs for OofA Experiments Under a Transition-Effect Model

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new transition-effect model for order-of-addition experiments, developing exact designs optimized for both response prediction and response estimation, applicable under block constraints.

Contribution

It proposes a novel transition-effect model for OofA experiments and develops algorithms for exact D- and I-efficient designs, addressing prediction needs not covered by existing methods.

Findings

Effective algorithms for D- and I-efficient designs

Successful identification of optimal addition order

Designs perform well under block constraints

Abstract

In the chemical, pharmaceutical, and food industries, sometimes the order of adding a set of components has an impact on the final product. These are instances of the order-of-addition (OofA) problem, which aims to find the optimal sequence of the components. Extensive research on this topic has been conducted, but almost all designs are found by optimizing the $D-$optimality criterion. However, when prediction of the response is important, there is still a need for $I-$optimal designs. A new model for OofA experiments is presented that uses transition effects to model the effect of order on the response, and the model is extended to cover cases where block-wise constraints are placed on the order of addition. Several algorithms are used to find both $D-$ and $I-$efficient designs under this new model for many run sizes and for large numbers of components. Finally, two examples are shown to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed designs and model at identifying the optimal order of addition, even under block-wise constraints.