Abstract
The last three decades have been marked by the advent of various analytical and simulation algorithms enhanced for reliability evaluation of multi-state systems. Though the latter are widely believed to be the most applicable to realistic systems, they impose a greater degree of computational burden relative to their analytical counterpart. Consequently, they have been outshone by these especially in structural optimization, redundancy allocation and maintenance optimization problems. On the flip side, analytical techniques are constrained by their various unique limitations. The development therefore, of a single approach that addresses these is desirable.