A Study of optimal component order in a general 1-out-of-n warm standby system

Optimal component order can effectively improve the system reliability for the design of a warm standby sparing (WSP) system. The optimal component order in the 1-out-of-n WSP system is studied in this paper. The optimal component order strategies in terms of the expected system lifetime are proposed, and proved for several cases. Furthermore, the 1-out-of-n WSP system with exponential components is investigated from the viewpoint of the system reliability; it is proved that the components should be activated according to the descending order of their failure rates. These results are very useful and applicable in the design of 1-out-of-n WSP systems.