A Discrete-Binary Transformation of the Reliability Redundancy Allocation Problem

Abstract

Given a reliability redundancy optimization problem in its discrete version, it is possible to transform such integer problem into a corresponding binary problem in log-time. A simple discrete-binary transformation is presented in this paper. The proposed transformation is illustrated using an example taken from the reliability literature. An immediate implication is that a standard exact dynamic programming approach may easily solve instances to optimality that were usually only solved heuristically.