Abstract: Discrete failure rates arise in several common situations in reliability theory where clock time is not the best scale on which to describe lifetime. A new hazard rate ordering of vectors of discrete dependent random lifetimes is introduced and illustrated in this paper. The relationship between this new ordering and the usual stochastic ordering and the likelihood ratio ordering is discussed.
Key words and phrases: Stochastic ordering, likelihood ratio ordering, hazard rate ordering, discrete dynamic construction, history, simulation, construction on the same probability space, discrete Freund model.