A nonparametric Bayesian network approach to assessing system reliability at early design stages

It is important to predict a system's reliability at its early design stages because modifying design to improve reliability and maintainability at a later time in the system's lifecycle will be costly and, oftentimes, impossible. However, this early prediction is challenging because of the lack of reliability data and the incomplete knowledge of a complex system's reliability structure. To tackle this problem, this paper presents a nonparametric Bayesian network approach. Employing nonparametric Bayesian network, the limitation of discrete Bayesian network can be overcome, and it can be used as a useful tool for decision support. The proposed methodology is applied to a case study to demonstrate its prognostic and diagnostic capabilities.