In this talk, statistical inference of the reliability characteristics of the components in the system based on the lifetimes of systems with the same structure will be discussed. Both systems with independent and dependent components will be considered. Point and interval estimation methods under different models are proposed. Monte Carlo simulation study is used to compare the performance of these estimation methods and recommendations are made based on these results. Examples of some two- and three-component systems are presented for illustrative purposes. Connection between the current work and rank-set sampling will also be discussed.

Collaborators: N. Balakrishnan (McMaster University, Canada), J. Navarro (University of Murcia, Spain), J. Zhang (Southern Methodist University)

(This work is supported by a grant from the Simons Foundation.)