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A novel reliability allocation approach using the OWA tree and soft set

  • SI.: Reliability Management and Computing
  • Published:
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Abstract

Reliability allocation is a crucial task in product design and development, directly influencing the quality and market competitiveness of a product. Traditional techniques for allocation of product reliability include the equalized allocation, ARINC, and AGREE allocation methods. Although these methods are simple and widely used in industry, they do not perform simultaneous allocation of the reliability of root and leaf nodes. Moreover, situations arise in the initial stages of product design in which there is incomplete information, increasing the difficulty of reliability allocation, can not be solved effectively using traditional reliability allocation methods. To resolve these issues, this paper integrates the ordered weighted averaging tree and soft set approach with regard to flexible allocation product reliability. To verify the proposed approach, a numerical example of a thin-film transistor liquid crystal display product is adopted. This paper also compares the results of the simulation with those of the equalized allocation, ARINC allocation, and AGREE allocation methods in dealing with incomplete information. The results demonstrate that the proposed method is more flexible and does not lose any valuable information that is provided by experts.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Republic of China, for financially supporting this research under Contract No. MOST 103-2410-H-145-002 and MOST 104-2410-H-145-001.

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Correspondence to Kuei-Hu Chang.

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Chang, KH. A novel reliability allocation approach using the OWA tree and soft set. Ann Oper Res 244, 3–22 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-016-2178-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-016-2178-4

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