Improving the Reliability of Parallel and Series–Parallel Systems by Reverse Engineering of Algebraic Inequalities

Michael Todinov ()
Additional contact information
Michael Todinov: School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford OX3 0BP, UK

Mathematics, 2025, vol. 13, issue 9, 1-16

Abstract: This paper presents a novel, domain-independent method for enhancing system reliability based on reverse engineering of algebraic inequalities. Although system reliability has been extensively studied, existing approaches have not addressed the challenge of improving reliability without knowing the reliability of individual components. This work fills this gap by demonstrating that the reliability of both parallel and series–parallel systems can be improved without any information about component reliability values. Specifically, this study establishes that in parallel systems, a symmetric arrangement of interchangeable components of the same type across parallel branches consistently yields higher system reliability than an asymmetric arrangement—regardless of the individual component reliabilities. This finding is derived through the reverse engineering of a new general algebraic inequality, proposed and proved for the first time. Furthermore, applying the same approach to series–parallel systems reveals that asymmetric arrangements of interchangeable redundancies offer superior system reliability compared with symmetric configurations.

Keywords: improving system reliability; reverse engineering of algebraic inequalities; parallel systems; series–parallel systems; domain-independent methods for reliability improvement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/13/9/1381/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/13/9/1381/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jmathe:v:13:y:2025:i:9:p:1381-:d:1641169

Access Statistics for this article

Mathematics is currently edited by Ms. Emma He

More articles in Mathematics from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().