Reliability-based measures for a retrial system with mixed standby components

In this paper, we consider a retrial and repairable multi-component system with mixed warm and cold standby components. It is assumed that the failure times of primary (operating) and warm standby components follow exponential distributions. When a component fails, it is sent to a service station with a single server (repairman) and no waiting space. The failed component is repaired if the server is idle and it has to enter an orbit if the server is busy. The failed component in the orbit will try to get the repair service again after an exponentially distributed random time period. The repair time also has an exponential distribution. The mean time-to-failure, MTTF, and the steady-state availability, AT(∞), are derived in this retrial and repairable system. Using a numerical example, we compare the systems with and without retrials in terms of the cost/benefit ratios. Sensitivity analysis for the mean time-to-failure and the steady-state availability are investigated as well.