Optimal grouping of heterogeneous components in series–parallel and parallel–series systems under Archimedean copula dependence

In this paper, we investigate series–parallel and parallel–series systems comprising n dependent components drawn from a heterogeneous population consisting of m different subpopulations. The components within each subpopulation are assumed to be dependent, while the subpopulations are independent of each other. We also assume that the subpopulations have different Archimedean copulas for their dependence. Under this setup, we discuss the …