SUMMARY Component importance analysis is a key part of the system reliability quantification process. It enables the weakest areas of a system to be identified and indicates modifications, which will improve the system reliability. Although a wide range of importance measures have been developed, the majority of these measures are strictly for coherent system analysis. Non-coherent systems can ...

The present report represents an entry RELIABILITY IMPORTANCE OF COMPONENTS which is to appear in the Encyclopedia of Statistical Sciences, Vol. 6 published by Wiley in 1985 .. It reviews different measures of reliability importance of components especially emphasazing recent developments.

Many real world systems (electric power, transportation, telecommunication, etc) are multistate systems composed of multistate components in which system reliability can be computed in terms reliabilities of its components. Such systems may be regarded as flow networks whose arcs (components) have independent, discrete, and multi-valued random capacities. An arc can, at different conditions, be...