Recent advances in system reliability optimization driven by importance measures

Abstract

System reliability optimization problems have been widely discussed to maximize system reliability with resource constraints. Birnbaum importance is a well-known method for evaluating the effect of component reliability on system reliability. Many importance measures (IMs) are extended for binary, multistate, and continuous systems from different aspects based on the Birnbaum importance. Recently, these IMs have been applied in allocating limited resources to the component to maximize system performance. Therefore, the significance of Birnbaum importance is illustrated from the perspective of probability principle and gradient geometrical sense. Furthermore, the equations of various extended IMs are provided subsequently. The rules for simple optimization problems are summarized to enhance system reliability by using ranking or heuristic methods based on IMs. The importance-based optimization algorithms for complex or large-scale systems are generalized to obtain remarkable solutions by using IM-based local search or simplification methods. Furthermore, a general framework driven by IM is developed to solve optimization problems. Finally, some challenges in system reliability optimization that need to be solved in the future are presented.