Effective Use of Meta-analysis for Industrial Process Development

Meta-Analysis is a systematic and objective methodology used to summarize, integrate, and interpret collections of empirical research experiments - even if the experiments were not all conducted in the same exact manner. Meta-analysis is widely used in the social sciences but has found little application in manufacturing, even though certain aspects of the manufacturing environment would make it relatively easy to apply. This paper provides relevant background and presents the strengths and weaknesses of meta-analysis. A simulated case study illustrates some anticipated implementation hurdles and solutions