Abstract
Reliability importance analysis is usually used to detect design weakness, to identify which components contribute the most to the failure of a system, and thus to help find the most cost-effective way for upgrading the system. In this paper, we consider the reliability importance analysis of components in a generalized phased-mission system using the Birnbaum's measure. Our method is based on multi-state binary decision diagrams. In addition, it accounts for two-level modular imperfect coverage that arises from the combination of traditional imperfect coverage and more general than OR-ed combinatorial phase requirements. An example three-phased mission system is analyzed to illustrate the applications and advantages of the proposed approach. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]