In the paper, excess methods for improving the reliability of multi-state series-parallel systems are presented:for the hot reserve of single components, the cold reserve of single components, and the mixed (hot and cold) reserve of single components. A process is also introduced to improve the reliability of these methods by replacing their components with more reliable ones. New theorems for multi-state limit reliability functions in homogeneous and non-homogeneous series-parallel large systems composed of components with improved reliability are presented, and applied to compare the effects of these systems in different reliability improving methods.