Revisiting the model of servicing machines with repairable service facility---a new analyzing idea and some new results (Q601940)

\(m+1\) machines are serviced by one repairman with a service facility. At any time a machine may break down and need repair. The working lifetime of each machine has an exponential distribution. If a machine breaks down it will be served immediately unless the repairman is servicing another broken machine, in which case a waiting line is formed. The servicing time of each breakdown has an arbitrary distribution. The service facility may fail in the process of service breakdown machines, it neither fails nor deteriorates in its idle periods. If the service facility fails, it is replaced by a new one immediately and the breakdown machine that is being served has to wait for service, the replacement time has arbitrary distribution, the service time for the breakdown machine is cumulative. One defines the ``idle period of the service facility'' and ''generalized busy period of service facility'', and discusses the probability that time point \(t\) is during the generalized busy period of service facility. There is studied the probability of failure at time \(t\) and the average number of failures in the interval \((0,t]\) by using simply a standard conditioning decomposition argument and obtain the corresponding results for the initial state \(N(0)=m+1\).