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Use of Design of Experiments in Casting Platinum
Tino Volpe
TIFFANY & CO

Introduction

Casting platinum has always been tricky business in more ways than one might think. Not only is it a difficult metal to work with due to its high melting temperature, which requires special materials and equipment, it is very expensive to work with. Because of its value people are very reluctant to experiment with the material. Yet without experimenting to find the right parameters we run the risk of creating many bad parts at a hefty price.

So what to do? There is in fact a great tool that has been around in quality circles for many years called Design of Experiment or DOE. This fairly simple tool can be used to quickly determine important parameters for casting platinum while at the same time weeding out the trivial ones so we don't waste our time with them. This paper will show how we can use DOE, or more specifically factorial designs, to find out what is important when casting platinum.

Background

Designed Experiments, sometimes referred to as statistically designed experiments has been used in quality circles for many years. The classical view of experimentation is to change one

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