Predicting failure times of coherent systems

Abstract

The article is focused on studying how to predict the failure times of coherent systems from the early failure times of their components. Both the cases of independent and dependent components are considered by assuming that they are identically distributed (homogeneous components). The heterogeneous components' case can be addressed similarly but more complexly. The present study is for non-repairable systems, but the information obtained could be used to decide if a maintenance action should be carried out at time t. Different cases are considered regarding the information available at time t. We use quantile regression techniques to predict the system failure times and to provide prediction intervals. The theoretical results are applied to specific system structures in some illustrative examples.