Generalized multistate monotone coherent systems

Abstract

Most available models for multistate coherent systems (MCS) assume that the state sets of the system and its components are totally ordered-an assumption that greatly limits the application of the usual MCS models. This paper presents a new MCS model-a generalized multistate coherent system (GMCS) model-which assumes, more generally, that the state sets of the system and its components are partially ordered. Since the structure of a partially ordered set is very flexible, the model applies to the reliability analysis of various multistate coherent systems. As a result, the GMCS model generalizes the coherent system theory from the binary-state case to the multistate case. The authors investigate some of the properties of this generalized model. Then, system reliability is redefined and bounds for its evaluation are derived.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>