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This paper aims to deal with the estimation of the empirical Bayesian exact confidence limits of reliability indexes of a cold standby series system with (n+k−1) units under the general progressive Type II censoring scheme.

Assuming that the lifetime of each unit in the system is identical and independent random variable with exponential distribution, the exact confidence limits of the reliability indexes are derived by using an empirical Bayes approach when an exponential prior distribution of the failure rate parameter is considered. The accuracy of these confidence limits is examined in terms of their coverage probabilities by means of Monte-Carlo simulations.

The simulation results show that accuracy of exact confidence limits of reliability indexes of a cold standby series system is efficient. Therefore, this approach is good enough to use for reliability practitioners in order to improve the system reliability.

When items are costly, the general progressive Type II censoring scheme is used to reduce the total test time and the associated cost of an experiment. The proposed method provides the means to estimate the exact confidence limits of reliability indexes of the proposed cold standby series system under this scheme.

The application of the proposed technique will help the reliability engineers/managers/system engineers in various industrial and other setups where a cold standby series system is widely used.

Reliability engineers must not only consider the consumption of energy, capital and material resources, but also seek more economic means of completing experiments effectively. This study derives formulae for computing ratios of expected type‐II censoring times and expected complete sampling times when the lifetime adheres to two‐parameter Pareto and Rayleigh distributions. Utilizing such formulae allows the construction of tables providing information about how much experiment time can be saved by employing a type‐II censoring plan instead of a complete sampling plan. Engineers can employ the proposed tables to determine the censoring number, the initial sample size and the other relevant parameters for reducing the total experiment time. Illustrative examples demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed procedure.

This article aims to develop procedures for estimation and prediction in case of Type-I hybrid censored samples drawn from a two-parameter generalized half-logistic distribution (GHLD).

The GHLD is a versatile model which is useful in lifetime modelling. Also, hybrid censoring is a time and cost-effective censoring scheme which is widely used in the literature. The authors derive the maximum likelihood estimates, the maximum product of spacing estimates and Bayes estimates with squared error loss function for the unknown parameters, reliability function and stress-strength reliability. The Bayesian estimation is performed under an informative prior set-up using the “importance sampling technique”. Afterwards, we discuss the Bayesian prediction problem under one and two-sample frameworks and obtain the predictive estimates and intervals with corresponding average interval lengths. Applications of the developed theory are illustrated with the help of two real data sets.

The performances of these estimates and prediction methods are examined under Type-I hybrid censoring scheme with different combinations of sample sizes and time points using Monte Carlo simulation techniques. The simulation results show that the developed estimates are quite satisfactory. Bayes estimates and predictive intervals estimate the reliability characteristics efficiently.

The proposed methodology may be used to estimate future observations when the available data are Type-I hybrid censored. This study would help in estimating and predicting the mission time as well as stress-strength reliability when the data are censored.

The purpose of this paper is to design an optimal reliability acceptance sampling plan (RASP) using the Type-I generalized hybrid censoring scheme (GHCS) for non-repairable products sold under the general rebate warranty. A cost function approach is proposed for products having Weibull distributed lifetimes incorporating relevant costs.

For Weibull distributed product lifetimes, acceptance criterion introduced by Lieberman and Resnikoff (1955) is derived for Type-I GHCS. A cost function is formulated using expected warranty cost and other relevant cost components incorporating the acceptance criterion. The cost function is optimized following a constrained optimization approach to arrive at the optimum RASP. The constraint ensures that the producer's and the consumer's risks are maintained at agreed-upon levels.

Optimal solution using the above approach is obtained for Type-I GHCS. As a special case of Type-I GHCS, the proposed approach is also used to arrive at the optimal design for Type-I hybrid censoring scheme as shown in Chakrabarty et al. (2019). Observations regarding the change in optimal design and computational times between the two censoring schemes are noted. An extensive simulation study is performed to validate the model for finite sample sizes and the results obtained are found to be in strong agreement. In order to analyze the sensitivity of the optimal solution due to misspecification of parameter values and cost components, a well-designed sensitivity analysis is carried out using a real-life failure data set from Lawless (2003). Interesting observations are made regarding the change in optimal cost due to change in parameter values, the impact of warranty cost in optimal design and change in optimal design due to change in lot sizes.

The research presents an approach for designing optimal RASPs using Type-I generalized hybrid censoring. The study formulates optimum life test sampling plans by minimizing the average aggregate costs involved, which makes it valuable in dealing with real-life problems pertaining to product quality management.

A progressive hybrid censoring scheme (PHCS) becomes impractical for ensuring dependable outcomes when there is a low likelihood of encountering a small number of failures prior to the predetermined terminal time T. The generalized progressive hybrid censoring scheme (GPHCS) efficiently addresses to overcome the limitation of the PHCS.

In this article, estimation of model parameter, survival and hazard rate of the Unit-Lindley distribution (ULD), when sample comes from the GPHCS, have been taken into account. The maximum likelihood estimator has been derived using Newton–Raphson iterative procedures. Approximate confidence intervals of the model parameter and their arbitrary functions are established by the Fisher information matrix. Bayesian estimation procedures have been derived using Metropolis–Hastings algorithm under squared error loss function. Convergence of Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) samples has been examined. Various optimality criteria have been considered. An extensive Monte Carlo simulation analysis has been shown to compare and validating of the proposed estimation techniques.

The Bayesian MCMC approach to estimate the model parameters and reliability characteristics of the generalized progressive hybrid censored data of ULD is recommended. The authors anticipate that health data analysts and reliability professionals will get benefit from the findings and approaches presented in this study.

The ULD has a broad range of practical utility, making it a problem to estimate the model parameters as well as reliability characteristics and the significance of the GPHCS also encourage the authors to consider the present estimation problem because it has not previously been discussed in the literature.

In order to reduce avoidably lengthy duration required to test highly reliable products under usage stress, accelerated life test sampling plans (ALTSPs) are employed. This paper aims to build a decision model for obtaining optimal sampling plan under accelerated life test setting using Type-I hybrid censoring scheme for products covered under warranty.

The primary decision model proposed in this paper determines ALTSP by minimizing the relevant costs involved. To arrive at the decision model, the Fisher information matrix for Type-I hybrid censoring scheme under accelerated life test setting is derived. The optimal solution is attained by utilizing appropriate techniques following a nonlinear constrained optimization approach. As a special case, ALTSP for Type-I censoring is obtained using the same approach. ALTSP under Type-I hybrid censoring using the variance minimization approach is also derived.

On comparing the optimal results obtained using the above mentioned approaches, it is found that the cost minimization approach does better in reducing the total cost incurred. Results also show that the proposed ALTSP model under cost function setting has considerably lower expected testing time. Interesting findings from the sensitivity analysis conducted using a newly introduced failure dataset pertaining to locomotive controls are highlighted.

The research introduces a model to design optimum ALTSP for Type-I hybrid censoring scheme. The practical viability of the model makes it valuable for real-life situations. The practical application of the proposed model is exemplified using a real-life case.

The study based on the estimation of the stress–strength reliability parameter plays a vital role in showing system efficiency. In this paper, considering independent strength and stress random variables distributed as inverted exponentiated Rayleigh model, the author have developed estimation procedures for the stress–strength reliability parameter R = P(X>Y) under Type II hybrid censored samples.

The maximum likelihood and Bayesian estimates of R based on Type II hybrid censored samples are evaluated. Because there is no closed form for the Bayes estimate, the author use the Metropolis–Hastings algorithm to obtain approximate Bayes estimate of the reliability parameter. Furthermore, the author construct the asymptotic confidence interval, bootstrap confidence interval and highest posterior density (HPD) credible interval for R. The Monte Carlo simulation study has been conducted to compare the performance of various proposed point and interval estimators. Finally, the validity of the stress–strength reliability model is demonstrated via a practical case.

The performance of various point and interval estimators is compared via the simulation study. Among all proposed estimators, Bayes estimators using MHG algorithm show minimum MSE for all considered censoring schemes. Furthermore, the real data analysis indicates that the splashing diameter decreases with the increase of MPa under different hybrid censored samples.

The frequentist and Bayesian methods are developed to estimate the associated parameters of the reliability model under the hybrid censored inverted exponentiated Rayleigh distribution. The application of the proposed stress–strength reliability model will help the reliability engineers and also other scientists to estimate the system reliability.

The step-stress accelerated test is the most appropriate statistical method to obtain information about the reliability of new products faster than would be possible if the product was left to fail in normal use. This paper presents the multiple step-stress accelerated life test using type-II censored data and assuming a cumulative exposure model. The authors propose a Bayesian inference with the lifetimes of test item under gamma distribution. The choice of the loss function is an essential part in the Bayesian estimation problems. Therefore, the Bayesian estimators for the parameters are obtained based on different loss functions and a comparison with the usual maximum likelihood (MLE) approach is carried out. Finally, an example is presented to illustrate the proposed procedure in this paper.

A Bayesian inference is performed and the parameter estimators are obtained under symmetric and asymmetric loss functions. A sensitivity analysis of these Bayes and MLE estimators are presented by Monte Carlo simulation to verify if the Bayesian analysis is performed better.

The authors demonstrated that Bayesian estimators give better results than MLE with respect to MSE and bias. The authors also consider three types of loss functions and they show that the most dominant estimator that had the smallest MSE and bias is the Bayesian under general entropy loss function followed closely by the Linex loss function. In this case, the use of a symmetric loss function as the SELF is inappropriate for the SSALT mainly with small data.

Most of papers proposed in the literature present the estimation of SSALT through the MLE. In this paper, the authors developed a Bayesian analysis for the SSALT and discuss the procedures to obtain the Bayes estimators under symmetric and asymmetric loss functions. The choice of the loss function is an essential part in the Bayesian estimation problems.

The purpose of this paper is to establish an exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) control chart for monitoring the mean level of Gompertz lifetimes with type‐I censoring.

The proposed control chart is developed based on the conditional expected values (CEVs). The control limits are determined numerically with an algorithm.

Compared with the EWMA CEV control charts of Zhang and Chen, numerical results indicate that the proposed control chart has good performance to detect mean shifts for Gompertz lifetimes either in decrease or in larger increase with type‐I censoring in terms of the average run length (ARL).

The paper shows that, based on the proposed method, practitioners can monitor the mean level of Gompertz lifetimes via an EWMA CEV control chart with type‐I censoring.

This article considers Inverse Gaussian distribution as the basic lifetime model for the test units. The unknown model parameters are estimated using the method of moments, the method of maximum likelihood and Bayesian methods. As part of maximum likelihood analysis, this article employs an expectation-maximization algorithm to simplify numerical computation. Subsequently, Bayesian estimates are obtained using the Metropolis–Hastings algorithm. This article then presents the design of optimal censoring schemes using a design criterion that deals with the precision of a particular system lifetime quantile. The optimal censoring schemes are obtained after taking into account budget constraints.

This article first presents classical and Bayesian statistical inference for Progressive Type-I Interval censored data. Subsequently, this article considers the design of optimal Progressive Type-I Interval censoring schemes after incorporating budget constraints.

A real dataset is analyzed to demonstrate the methods developed in this article. The adequacy of the lifetime model is ensured using a simulation-based goodness-of-fit test. Furthermore, the performance of various estimators is studied using a detailed simulation experiment. It is observed that the maximum likelihood estimator relatively outperforms the method of moment estimator. Furthermore, the posterior median fares better among Bayesian estimators even in the absence of any subjective information. Furthermore, it is observed that the budget constraints have real implications on the optimal design of censoring schemes.

The proposed methodology may be used for analyzing any Progressive Type-I Interval Censored data for any lifetime model. The methodology adopted to obtain the optimal censoring schemes may be particularly useful for reliability engineers in real-life applications.