Taguchi Method Programming Example

I've been asked to research some programming related to the "Taguchi Method", especially as it relates to Multi-variant testing. This is one of the first subjects I've tried to research that I've found zero, nada, zilch, code examples for, especially considering its mathematical basis.

I've found some books describing the math invol开发者_StackOverflow社区ved but it looks like I'm going to be doing some math brush up unless I can find some code examples I can relate to.

Is this one of those rare things that once you work out the programming, it's so valuable that no one shares? Or do I just fail at Taguchi + google?

Taguchi designs are the same thing as covering arrays. The basic idea is that if you have F data "fields" and every one can have N different values, it is possible to construct N^F different test cases. A covering array is basically a set of test cases that together cover all possible pairwise combinations of two field values, and the idea is to generate as small one as possible. E.g. if F=3 and N=3, you have 27 possible test cases, but it is enough to have nine test cases if you aim for pairwise coverage:

    Field A | Field B | Field C
    ---------------------------
          1         1         1
          1         2         2
          1         3         3
          2         1         2
          2         2         3
          2         3         1
          3         1         3
          3         2         1
          3         3         2

In this table, you can choose any two fields and any two values and you can always find a row that contains the chosen values for the chosen fields.

Generating Taguchi designs in general is a difficult combinatorial problem.

You can generate Taguchi designs by various methods:

• Branch and bound
• Stochastic search (e.g. tabu search or simulated annealing)
• Greedy search
• Specific mathematical constructions for some specific structures