An integrated approach to redundancy allocation and test planning for reliability growth

Abstract

Previously, two strategies were disjointly considered for improving system reliability: testing components (to identify and remove failure modes, resulting in reliability growth) and installing redundancies. In this paper, we develop a new model that merges these concepts within an integrated optimization model that maximizes system reliability. Specifically, our model considers a series-parallel system in which the system reliability can be improved by both testing components and installing redundant components. We contribute an exact algorithm that decomposes the problem into smaller integer linear programs. We prove that this algorithm is finite and apply it to a set of instances. Experiments demonstrate that the integrated approach generates greater reliabilities than applying test planning and redundancy allocation models iteratively, and moreover, the integrated approach yields significant savings in computational time.