Signature based analysis of m-Consecutive-k-out-of-n: F systems with exchangeable components

In this article, we study reliability properties of m-consecutive-k-out-of-n: F systems with exchangeable components. We deduce exact formulae and recurrence relations for the signature of the system. Closed form expressions for the survival function and the lifetime distribution as a mixture of the distribution of order statistics are established as well. These representations facilitate the computation of several reliability characteristics of the system for a given exchangeable joint distribution or survival function. Finally, we provide signature-based stochastic ordering results for the system's lifetime and investigate the IFR preservation property under the formulation of m-consecutive-k-out-of-n: F systems.