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10. Exercises
Economics of Reliability
Tutorial Sheet
1. The time to failure of a television tube is estimated to be exponentially distributed
with a mean of three years. A company offers insurance on these tubes for the
first year of usage. On what percentage of policies will they have to pay a claim?
(0.283)
3. For the data in the above problem, the realized profit on a new car is $1,000.
Including costs of parts and labor the dealer must pay $250 to repair each failure.
What is the expected profit per car?
($929)
5. A manufacturer of a commercial television monitor guarantees the picture tube for
one year (8,760 hours). The monitors are used in airport terminals for flight
schedules, and they are in continuous use with power on. The mean life of the
tubes is 20,000 hours, and they follow an exponential timetofailure density. It
costs the manufacturer $300 to make, sell, and deliver a monitor that will be sold
for $400. It costs $150 to replace a failed tube, including materials and labor. The
manufacturer has no replacement obligation beyond the first replacement. What is
the manufacturer’s expected profit?
($46.8)
7. A particular type of transistor is to be used in an application for 50 hours. Two
brands of transistors are available, one having a life distribution N(40,36) and the
other having a life distribution N(48,9). Which transistor is to be preferred in this
application?
(N(48,9))
8. Specifications for a light bulb are that the life be greater than 125 hours. This life
is known to be normally distributed. The only data available to the manufacturer
concern the average life of test bulbs, which are normally distributed with mean
130 and S.D. 4. These averages are obtained for groups of 3 light bulbs. Based on
this information, what fraction of the bulbs produced can be expected to fall
outside of specifications?
(23.6% approx.)