Allocating active redundancies to k-out-of-n reliability systems with permutation monotone component lifetimes

This paper studies k-out-of-n redundant systems with component lifetimes having lower tail permutation decreasing probability density. For matched redundancies with stochastic arrangement increasing lifetimes, the allocation of a more reliable component to a weaker component is proved to enhance system reliability. For redundancies with independent and identically distributed lifetimes, more allocations to a weaker component are shown to stochastically increase the system lifetime. In addition, using a real data set, we illustrate the statistical aspects of developing lifetimes with lower tail permutation decreasing density. Copyright (c) 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.