General minimum lower-order confounding three-level split-plot designs when the whole plot factors are important

Three-level fractional factorial split-plot (FFSP) designs with the whole plot (WP) factors being more important than the subplot factors are considered in the article. An aliased component-number pattern of type WP (WP-ACNP) is introduced for ranking such designs. The criterion of general minimum lower-order confounding of type WP (WP-GMC) is proposed based on WP-ACNP. The expressions of the key components in WP-ACNP are given via complementary sets. Some necessary conditions for FFSP designs to be WP-GMC FFSP designs are given and some three-level WP-GMC FFSP designs are constructed and tabulated.