Models and customer-centric system performance measures using fuzzy reliability

This paper proposes a new perspective and methodology to model the behavior of the system/component using the theory and methods for fuzzy sets. We use the indicator or performance or substitute variable which is well understood by the customer to fuzzify the states of the system. Thus, the success/failure events are treated as fuzzy sets. Fuzzy reliability is defined and compared to the traditional binary states and multi-state reliability modeling. The concept of fuzzy random variable is introduced to model the dynamic behavior of time to fuzzy failure. Customer-centric system performance measures are developed based on fuzzy reliability modeling. Numerical examples show how fuzzy reliability models and relevant measures can be applied to evaluate complex system and the advantages over the classic reliability analysis in decision making.