In this paper, we consider the problem of the evaluation of system reliability using statistical data obtained from reliability tests of its elements, in which the lifetimes of elements are described using an exponential distribution. We assume that this lifetime data may be reported imprecisely and that this lack of precision may be described using fuzzy sets. As the direct application of the fuzzy sets methodology leads in this case to very complicated and time consuming calculations, we propose simple approximations of fuzzy numbers using shadowed sets introduced by Pedrycz (1998). The proposed methodology may be simply extended to the case of general lifetime probability distributions.