PERFECT AGGREGATION IN BAYESIAN-ESTIMATION FOR SEVERAL REALISTIC RELIABILITY MODELS

Previous work by one of the authors [1] has shown that for simple two-component reliability systems aggregation error occurs in Bayesian estimation except under very restrictive conditions. In this paper, necessary and sufficient conditions for perfect aggregation are developed for more complicated reliability systems. The results show that the conditions for perfect aggregation are no less restrictive than those derived previously for simple systems. An example is provided to give the flavor of what will happen for the more general case. In addition, some implications of this work are discussed.