ABSTRACT
Raymond H. Myers Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia
1. INTRODUCTION
It is interesting to note that there are a limited number of areas of statistics that are almost entirely motivated by and dependent on real problems. They do not progress merely because of innovative mathematical rigor, but rather their development is a function of the increased complexity of problems faced by practitioners. Such is the case with response surface methodology (RSM). The fundamental goal remains the same as it was in the late 1940s and early 1950s: to find optimum process conditions through experimental design and statistical analysis. While the term “quality improvement” became a classic and overused term in the 1980s and 1990s, RSM dealt with quality improvement problems 30 years earlier.
