Editorial pubs.acs.org/OPRD
Application of Design of Experiments to Process Development
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T
he powerful impact that statistical design of experiments (DoE) has made in the field of chemical process development prompted Trevor Laird, the former Editor of this periodical, to ponder in 2002 why so few chemists were incorporating DoE into their process development workflow.1 He correctly speculated that the training in this area for both current students and industrial scientists was inadequate. He tasked the academic scientific community with incorporating DoE methodologies into their undergraduate or graduate curricula. While it is understandable that many chemistry professors may not feel well-versed enough on this topic to take on this task alone, there are sufficient resources that can be leveraged outside of one’s own academic department. My curiosity on this topic led me to search if university courses are available to help fill this void. I was quite surprised by the outcome. A quick survey found many schools do offer courses on this topic, mostly in the Math and Statistics departments, not surprisingly. Here are just a few: • University of Washington: STAT 316DoE and Regression Analysis • University of Chicago: STAT 34500Design/Analysis of Experiments • Penn State University: STATS 503Design of Experiments • University of Michigan: STATS 470Introduction to DoE • Johns Hopkins University: 625.462Design and Analysis of Experiments • Arizona State University: online DoE certification program (nondegree) Thus, I surmise that the majority of research universities with a chemistry department also have a Math/Statistics professor on that very campus with expertise in this area. So it certainly seems plausible that a DoE course with a chemistry focus could be jointly developed and perhaps cotaught by the respective professors. I challenge the academic readers of this journal, both students and professors, to reach “across the aisle” to your statistics brethren and develop a course that can train our next generation of scientists in this important discipline. For those students pursuing a nonacademic career, this can serve as a way to differentiate yourself from your peers. There has been progress though. In the intervening decade since Trevor’s editorial, there has been a respectable increase in the number of OPR&D manuscripts that include DoE as a significant component of the work, from an average of 6.0 published manuscripts/year (2003−2007) to 14.7/year (2008− 2013). This Special Feature on the application of DoE to chemical process development is anchored by a review covering this very topic, highlighting OPR&D articles over the past decade. The issue also includes contributions from a wide range of origins, including academics and industrial scientists, submitted from authors around the world. This diversity is reflected in the many applications of DoE described herein.
Notes
Views expressed in this editorial are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the ACS.
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REFERENCES
(1) Laird, T. Editorial. Org. Process Res. Dev. 2002, 6, 337.
Special Issue: Application of Design of Experiments to Process Development
Steven A. Weissman, Guest Editor
© 2015 American Chemical Society
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Published: November 20, 2015 1604
DOI: 10.1021/acs.oprd.5b00343 Org. Process Res. Dev. 2015, 19, 1604−1604
