In this paper, we investigate the effect of a single cold standby component on the performance of a coherent system. In particular, we focus on coherent systems which may fail at the time of the first component failure in the system. We obtain signature based expressions for the survival...

In this article we develop a bounding procedure which is applied in an algorithm for determining the number of back-up components to include in a series system. Operating only when original units fail, back-up components increase system reliability. They also add weight, take up space, and cost...