Because of both precise measurement and efficient quality control, coordinate measuring machines(CMMs) have been widely used in the industry. The purpose of this paper is to present a method to estimate the CMM measurement uncertainty using design of experiments. A factorial design is applied to carry out the performance test proposed by ISO 10360 and to investigate CMM measurement errors associated to orientation and length of the length bar. In order to assess the measurement uncertainty for the performance test, an analysis of the uncertainty components that make up the uncertainty budget has been carried out. The procedure for evaluating the uncertainty of it follows GUM ("Guide to the expression of uncertainty in measurement"). The results show that the proposed method is suitable to investigate CMM performance and determine the contribution of machine variables to measurement uncertainty.