In: Knowledge and process management: the journal of corporate transformation ; the official journal of the Institute of Business Process Re-engineering, Band 13, Heft 4, S. 264-269
AbstractLet {Xi} be independent HNBUE (Harmonic New Better Than Used in Expectation) random variables and let {Yi} be independent exponential random variables such that E{Xi}=E{Yi} It is shown that \documentclass{article}\pagestyle{empty}\begin{document}$ E\left[{u\left({\mathop {\min \,X_i}\limits_{l \le i \le n}} \right)} \right] \ge E\left[{u\left({\mathop {\min \,Y_i}\limits_{l \le i \le n}} \right)} \right] $\end{document} for all increasing and concave u. This generalizes a result of Kubat. When comparing two series systems with components of equal cost, one with lifetimes {Xi} and the other with lifetimes {Yi}, it is shown that a risk‐averse decision‐maker will prefer the HNBUE system. Similar results are obtained for parallel systems.