I spent much of last week in the Land of Mouse, Fla. (aka. Orlando) for the fall meetings of the Technology & Maintenance Council. I’ve never attended the TMC’s fall meetings before, but I found them to be as engaging and informative as the spring meetings.

One of the most interesting forums held at TMC is Fleet Talk, which brings together fleet owners and maintenance managers to discuss common concerns and to share solutions. This year, there was some discussion during the forum about what maintenance managers should expect in terms of downtime on current emissions-generation equipment.

One maintenance manager in attendance asked: What is the “new normal” regarding downtime? He said on any given day 5-6% of his power units are down and he wondered if that’s abnormally high or consistent with what other fleets were experiencing. Other fleets in the room seemed to concur with his observations, citing a downtime rate of 4-5%.

Later at TMC, in a presentation on aftertreatment systems, Kirk Atrichter, v.p. of maintenance for Crete Carriers, said 3-4% of his fleet is down at any point in time and 25% of its repairs are emissions-related.