Variables acceptance reliability sampling plan for repairable items

Abstract

Traditionally, acceptance reliability sampling plans have been developed for non-repairable items. However, the functions required for items become more and more complex and, accordingly, the items are composed of several components and tend to be repairable. In this paper, we consider variables acceptance reliability sampling plan for repairable items. We develop a variables acceptance sampling plan based on the failure and repair data observed during the testing period. It is shown that the developed sampling plan improves the reliability characteristic of the population and that the lifetimes of items before and after the reliability sampling test are stochastically ordered.

Keywords:

• variable sampling plan
• repairable item
• minimal repair
• mixture failure rate
• stochastic order

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the Editors and the referee for helpful comments and valuable suggestions, which have improved the presentation of this paper considerably. The work of the first author was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MEST) (No. 2011-0017338). The work of the first author was also supported by Priority Research Centers Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (2009-0093827).