Allocation of Test Effort for Minimum Variance of Reliability

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Abstract
This paper is concerned with the problem of determining the optimal allocation of test effort among individual components of a system. Using knowledge of the relationship between component uncertainty and system uncertainty, and component and system test costs, the test allocation is determined so as to minimize the variance of an estimator of overall system reliability. The optimal allocations for a series system and a parallel system are examined as special cases. The sensitivity of the optimal allocation is examined with respect to differences in system configuraition.