Assessing System Reliability by Combining Multilevel Data from Different Test Modalities
C. Shane Reese, Hamada Michael, David G. Robinson · Quality Technology & Quantitative Management · 2005
In this paper, we show how to estimate the reliability of an entire system for a specified period of time when the available data may be at different levels of the system and come from different test modalities and consequently vary in fidelity. We propose a hierarchical statistical model for binary data which allows all available data to be used while faithfully accounting for these differences. This allows one to provide a better estimate of system reliability under use conditions even when some of test modalities are harsher than use conditions. We take a Bayesian approach and show how it can be implemented in WinBUGS. The proposed methodology is illustrated with an example.