Reliability increase of consecutive k-out-of-n:f and related systems through components' rearrangement
In the analysis of consecutive k-out-of-n:F and related systems the optimal ordering of components is an important problem. Simply, if the components are not s-identical, changing their locations may improve the system's reliability. The aim is to find the optimum component's arrangement, ie. one for which the system's reliability attains its maximum value. This problem has been studied in several papers, but its solution has been found only for some special cases of systems. The present paper gives a procedure which significantly improves the reliability of the considered systems and does not require laborious computations.