Design consulting tools are easy to come by these days, but it is important to use them properly. Although it is tempting to simply pick up a book and then point and click your way through the software program, this approach is rarely successful. Choose tools carefully and then put them to work appropriately in order to see the desired effects.

In the field of statistics, it is very easy to begin to take shortcuts. Perhaps you don't fully understand what you are doing, or you don't completely understand a given piece of syntax. It doesn't matter if you get the desired output, right? Wrong. Both the operations themselves and the resulting output are predicated on statistical principals to which one must carefully adhere. Anything else compromises the integrity of the work.

Proper Use of Design Consulting Tools
The main place where this becomes problematic is in interpreting statistical output. Many people are so relieved to see the program run that they barely gloss over the output it yields. Instead, they scroll through the DFSS software output looking for the specific numbers of interest.

Important information is overlooked this way. To maximize your design consulting tools, begin by understanding them. This may seem straightforward, but it is advice that is all too often ignored. DFSS and DOE procedures are useful and lucrative, but only when pursued in a scientifically rigorous fashion in which no detail is overlooked.