Modeling and analysis of engineering systems data using flowgraph models

An innovative approach to data analysis for complicated stochastic systems involves modeling based on flowgraph methods. This article introduces flowg raph and associated saddlepoint methods for problems in systems engineering and reliability. The methods are especially useful for analyzing time-to-e vent data and finding predictive distributions of such data. Applications t o a cellular-telephone network are given. Advantages of flowgraph models ov er direct simulation are presented. Methods of likelihood construction for incomplete data are given.