Quality Criteria

Design of Experiment (DOE) enables you to see the effect of some intervention on part quality. Quality Criteria are those indicators that define part quality, such as sink mark depth, part mass or cooling time.

The Quality Criteria listed in the DOE Builder are imported from the base study, based on the analysis sequence chosen. When selected in the DOE Builder, these parameters appear in the Optimization (DOE) tree in the Study tasks pane. Only quality indicators created by the analysis sequence of the base study are shown in the tree. Quality indicators are related to the following results categories:

• Filling and packing
• Cooling
• Shrinkage and warpage

The left hand panel lists the results or Quality Criteria that you would like to study. The right hand side describes what information the DOE analysis results will provide. Look at the Analysis Log at the end of the experiment to see the results, or the results section of the Study Tasks pane to see the plots.

When you click on a quality criterion in the left-hand panel, the right-hand panel updates with information specific to that criterion, including the goal of the analysis and type of calculation being performed. You can alter the weighting of the criterion; the higher the weighting the more important you consider that criterion to be with regards to part quality.

Weighting

Weighting refers to the importance you place on the specific quality criterion. Assign it a higher number if it is more important to you for part quality than other criteria.

Goal

Goal refers to the objective of the DOE analysis. For example, 'Minimize' for sink marks indicates that the goal of the analysis is to minimize the depth of the sink marks.

Calculate

Calculate refers to the source of the values that will be used in the DOE analysis. For example,

• 'Maximum' for sink marks indicates that the deepest sink mark identified in the results will be optimized during the DOE analysis.
• 'From Logs' for cycle time indicates that the cycle time listed in the Analysis log file will be optimized during the DOE analysis.
• 'Standard deviation' for cooling time indicates that the standard deviation, or variation from average, of the cooling time identified in the results will be calculated during each DOE run or study. The x-axis plots the change in value, the y-axis plots the number of elements with each value and the z-axis plots the standard deviation for each study. The number of studies is listed in the Analysis log.

Note: The selection of Quality Criteria listed in the left hand panel will change depending upon the molding process, analysis sequence and process settings chosen.