COMBINATORIAL APPROACH TO COMPUTING COMPONENT IMPORTANCE INDEXES IN COHERENT SYSTEMS

Abstract

We consider binary coherent systems with independent binary components having equal failure probability q. The system DOWN probability is expressed via its signature's combinatorial analogue, the so-called D-spectrum. Using the definition of the Birnbaum importance measure (BIM), we introduce for each component a new combinatorial parameter, so-called BIM-spectrum, and develop a simple formula expressing component BIM via the component BIM-spectrum. Further extension of this approach allows obtaining a combinatorial representation for the joint reliability importance (JRI) of two components. To estimate component BIMs and JRIs, there is no need to know the analytic formula for system reliability. We demonstrate how our method works using the Monte Carlo approach. We present several examples of estimating component importance measures in a network when the DOWN state is defined as the loss of terminal connectivity.