On Improving the Convergence and Accuracy of the Cumulant Method of Calculating Reliability and Production Cost

Two techniques for improving the convergence and accuracy of the Cumulant method are presented. The Large Deviations Approach that has already been used in a three-cumulant version with excelent results is formulated recursively thus allowing to effectively use any number of cumulants. A new expansion centering technique that significantly improves the accuracy of the method is also presented and implemented recursively. Numerical results show that these enhancements are quite effective.