Dealing with DKE and DoE in workplaces: Part - I
Dunning-Kruger Effect (DKE), and design of experiments (DoE) when properly understood by decision-takers in the workplace, including manufacturing and mining industries, can make an organization prosper.
The DKE is a cognitive bias wherein individuals with limited knowledge in a particular domain tend to overestimate their abilities that stem from their metacognitive ability, the capacity to recognize one’s incompetence. Conversely, those who possess expertise in a field may underestimate their competence.
In workplaces the DKE manifests in various ways, impacting individuals’ understanding of their domain areas.
The process of dispersion of a powder into a colloidal form in a non-miscible liquid, say for example, may need water alone. For far superior technical reasons, glycols, about two decades ago was used as the dispersion medium. It was then discontinued for about a decade since the process of manufacture changed. Now that the same two materials are used in a different manufacturing process, the present employees have gone into the decade-old process which is obsolete. Any number of scientific experiments could not change the mindset of the present people.
Implementation of a process parameter, newer input materials may have 10 different options. Say RPM of the agitator, temperatures of the process, the mixing time, all of these will have n- number of parameters. Carrying out experiments with all sorts of permutations and combinations is impossible. DoE in such cases helps to yield the best option by carrying out only 8 experiments. It saves time, cost, and results in efficient production. Technical experts and operators, if not conversant with DoE, may reach the least efficient process.?
The combination of DKE and non-DoE often ends with a loss and bad quality of material outputs. It is my thought, but will you agree?