Technical Note—On an Algorithm of Ghare and Taylor

This note points out an example in which an algorithm reported by P. M. Ghare and R. E. Taylor [Opns. Res. 17, 838–847 (1969)] for determining optimum redundancy in a series system does not produce an optimal solution. It presents the Ghare-Taylor solution along with a better feasible solution, and explains the necessary corrections to the Ghare-Taylor algorithm and the cause of the difficulty with it. The note thus questions the validity of the computer times reported by Ghare and Taylor and indicates a source yielding computer times for the corrected algorithm.