The efficiency of different procedures or the quality of different products could be enhanced by optimizing the production process steps. In this paper, experimental investigations using a Taguchi method for chitin extraction from shrimp waste are presented. The experiments have been designed using an L-9 orthogonal array with four factors and three levels affecting the chitin isolation process. The effects of the four factors on the performance characteristic were analyzed using signal-to-noise ratio (S/N). The results showed that chitosan with high deacetylation degree could be obtained by optimizing the extraction procedure with a minimum of experimental runs.