General expressions that can be used to calculate these parameters for various item configurations are given in Table 4-1 through Table 4-8. The derivation of the expressions is described in various reliability engineering textbooks.

Note that expressions that are based on RBD analysis are often only valid under certain restrictive assumptions, e.g., independence of blocks, no queuing for repair, etc.. Modelling techniques that may be used to overcome such restrictions are described elsewhere.