The Prediction Information in the Latest Failure

Abstract

When a system consisting of many independently functioning components of the same type is put into service, some action may be appropriate as soon as some proportion of the components has failed. It is, therefore, useful to be able to predict later failure times from earlier ones. We compare the information in the latest available failure time to that contained in all previous failures, for predicting later failures. For many of the well-known failure distributions commonly used to model component life, the relative amount of prediction information in the latest available failure time is surprisingly high.

Key Words:

• Prediction
• Information
• Order statistics
• Life testing