ABSTRACT
The formulation of the system reliability function is often relatively straightforward, but the general forms must be constructed carefully. The key issue to consider is whether or not the components are mutually independent. For system structures other than series and parallel, the computation of the system reliability from the component reliabilities is not as straightforward. The fact that every system structure has an equivalent representation as a combination of series and parallel forms suggests that we can use the equivalent structures to evaluate system reliability. While this is true, the fact that the minimum paths and minimum cuts that comprise the equivalent forms are usually not independent implies that we will be able to obtain bounds on system reliability rather than the exact system reliability values. The idea that the components that comprise a system may sometimes be partitioned into modules may be extended to the calculation of system reliability bounds.
