Importance measure of system reliability upgrade for multi-state consecutive k-out-of-n systems

Importance measures in reliability systems are used to identify weak components in contributing to a proper function of the system. Traditional importance measures mainly concerned the changing value of the system reliability caused by the change of the reliability of the component, and seldom considered the joint effect of the probability distribution, improvement rate of the object component. This paper studies the rate of the system reliability upgrading with an improvement of the component reliability for the multi-state consecutive k-out-of-n system. To verify the multi-state consecutive k-out-of-n system reliability upgrading by improving one component based on its improvement rate, an increasing potential importance (IPI) and its physical meaning are described at first. Secondly, the relationship between the IPI and Birnbaum importance measures are discussed. And the IPI for some different improvement actions of the component is further discussed. Thirdly, the characteristics of the IPI are analyzed. Finally, an application to an oil pipeline system is given.