Abstract
The relationship between reliability and dependence of components within each element is discussed in complex systems. In the present text, a complex system is composed of n elements and each of its elements has two dependent components. In this setting, dependency among components is a crucial issue, since the reliability and mean residual life (MRL) functions of such systems are affected by its component dependence. In this article, copula functions are used to describe dependency among components. Some stochastic orderings are made between two complex systems with different degrees of dependence among the components. Some examples and illustrative graphs are presented, as well.
Acknowledgements
The author thanks the Associate Editor and anonymous referees for their useful comments and suggestions which improved the presentation of the article.