A company evaluated three new production-line technologies, one involving high automation, the second involving moderate automation, and

Question:

A company evaluated three new production-line technologies, one involving high automation, the second involving moderate automation, and the third involving low automation. All three technologies were intended to improve productivity through increased automation, but they continued to require operator intervention. Three groups were identified, each consisting of three line operators with similar years of production-line experience. Within each group, the operators were randomly assigned to one of the three new production-line technologies. The output (in units per hour) was recorded for each operator and is shown in the accompanying table.

a. What are the blocks and what are the treatments in this randomized-blocks design?
b. Complete the ANOVA table in the accompanying computer output for the data set given.
c. Do the data provide sufficient evidence to indicate that any significant differences exist among the outputs for the three technologies?
d. Using a confidence interval of the form

where v represents the degrees of freedom, find a 99% confidence interval for the true difference in average output between the high and moderate automation lines.