Providing a New Algorithm by Combining and Improving Greedy Method and Weighed Costs for Solving Different Redundancy Allocation Problems (RAP)

Due to the importance of reliability in systems performance and amount and variety of its costs, system designers have more attention to the reliability optimization, especially redundancy allocation problems (RAP). Reliability optimization problems are various and NP-hard. Thus, for any kind of them, different methods have developed which are usually suitable for limited kind of these problems. This paper provides a new algorithm (GW) that by doing some heuristic improvements on greedy method and weighed costs and combining them, it can be used for RAP with different configurations, variety of components and diversity in redundancy strategy. Using a new method of weighting costs, using an innovative greedy index and a specific search mechanism in this algorithm increas its speed, accuracy, and flexibility in solving the RAP types. The algorithm abilities are shown by solving several test problems with different conditions and variety of configurations while some of them are large. Results reveal that this algorithm is able to solve various problems and produces solutions in short time that are equal or very near to optimal solutions or the best existent solutions. GW has tangible and operational logic, therefore, it can develop the practical insight of system designers.