On the inspection policy of a two-component parallel system with failure interaction

In this paper we study a two-component standby system which can successfully operate upon a demand if at least one component is not failed. We assume that failures can be detected only by periodic inspections. We consider that the failure of one component can modify the (conditional) failure probability of the component still alive with probability p and do not interact with probability 1-p. For that failure interaction scheme we obtain the system reliability function for the case of staggered inspections. We compare staggered and non-staggered inspections through numerical examples considering constant hazard rates. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.