Optimal allocation of components in parallel–series and series–parallel systems

Abstract

This paper shows how majorization and Schur-convex functions can be used to solve the problem of optimal allocation of components to parallel-series and series-parallel systems to maximize the reliability of the system. For parallel-series systems the optimal allocation is completely described and depends only on the ordering of component reliabilities. For series-parallel systems, we describe a partial ordering among allocations that can lead to the optimal allocation. Finally, we describe how these problems can be cast as integer linear programming problems and thus the results obtained in this paper show that when some linear integer programming problems are recast in a different way and the techniques of Schur functions are used, complete solutions can be obtained in some instances and better insight in others.