Physical Availability (PA%)
91.4%
→
92.4%
+1.0%
A higher PA% means more scheduled hours converted into working production time across the fleet.
Fast Manual Section
How To Improve My PA% + MTTR%
Adjust the manual search-time reduction and see how it cascades through MTTR, Physical Availability, and annual production value using the same yellow-and-black Fast Manual system from the homepage.
KPI Cascade — How One Change Moves Everything
MTTR — Mean Time To Repair
12.0h
→
10.6h
-1.40h
Reducing document search cuts diagnosis drag and shortens total repair duration.
Planned vs. Unplanned Ratio
58%
→
76%
+18%
Better documentation access improves diagnosis confidence and reduces reactive rework.
First-Time Fix Rate (FTFR)
68%
→
83%
+15%
Technicians who get the right procedure fast are more likely to fix it right on the first pass.
Plain English Explainer
How It All Connects
1
Your tech gets a repair callStart
A truck goes down, the clock starts, and the supervisor immediately owns the downtime. Before the wrench work begins, the technician still has to find the exact procedure, spec, or diagnostic path.
Downtime starts costing money the moment the machine stops moving.
2
Manual search eats the clockThe Problem
Technicians lose time flipping across model-specific manuals, hunting revisions, and validating the right section. That time does not create repair progress, but it fully counts against MTTR and PA%.
Manual search is dead time, not wrench time.
3
Reduce search and MTTR dropsThe Fix
If you cut search time from 2.5 hours to 45 minutes, total repair time falls by the same amount. You do not need a new shop or more labor to create that gain, just faster access to the right documentation.
This is the cleanest lever in the calculator: faster answers directly compress total repair duration.
4
Lower MTTR lifts PA%The Cascade
Physical Availability improves when total downtime hours come down. Faster repair completion means fewer scheduled hours lost, which improves the number fleet directors and managers get judged on every week.
A small PA% move across a working fleet becomes a meaningful production number fast.
5
Better docs reduce comebacksThe Bonus
When a tech gets the exact procedure, they are more likely to fix the problem correctly the first time. That improves first-time fix rate, reduces repeat failures, and helps shift work from reactive to planned.
Faster information access compounds into better reliability decisions, not just faster search.
Frequently Asked Questions
Still Have Questions?
Yes - and here's the direct line. PA% is just: scheduled hours minus downtime hours, divided by scheduled hours. Every repair your tech completes faster is fewer downtime hours. Fewer downtime hours means your PA% climbs. Your boss doesn't care how it happened - they care that the number went up. This is one of the cleanest, lowest-risk ways to move that metric without adding headcount or buying new equipment.
And when review season comes around and you slide a chart across the table showing PA% climbing from 87% to 92%, that's not a conversation about what you hope to do - that's a conversation about what you already did. Hard to argue with a number.
And when review season comes around and you slide a chart across the table showing PA% climbing from 87% to 92%, that's not a conversation about what you hope to do - that's a conversation about what you already did. Hard to argue with a number.
Your experienced guys do know where things are - for the machines they've fixed a hundred times. But what about the truck that just came in with a fault code they've seen twice in five years? Or the new model year with a revised hydraulic circuit? Or the guy covering for someone on leave who's never touched that excavator?
The veteran tech is a single point of failure. The day he retires, that institutional knowledge walks out the door. Fast manual search is the backup brain for everyone who isn't him yet.
And when your shop runs smoothly even during crew transitions and sick days, that's a fleet manager who looks unshakeable - someone operations leadership trusts to scale.
The veteran tech is a single point of failure. The day he retires, that institutional knowledge walks out the door. Fast manual search is the backup brain for everyone who isn't him yet.
And when your shop runs smoothly even during crew transitions and sick days, that's a fleet manager who looks unshakeable - someone operations leadership trusts to scale.
New techs don't quit because the work is hard - they quit because they feel lost and embarrassed in front of experienced crew. When a junior tech can pull up the exact procedure in 20 seconds instead of flipping through 800 pages while the foreman watches, they build confidence faster, make fewer mistakes, and stick around longer.
You're not replacing the mentorship - you're removing the part where the new guy looks incompetent while hunting for a torque spec.
Lower turnover means lower training cost, faster ramp-up, and a reputation as a shop where people actually want to work. In a tight labor market, that makes you the fleet manager who solved the hiring problem everyone else is still complaining about.
You're not replacing the mentorship - you're removing the part where the new guy looks incompetent while hunting for a torque spec.
Lower turnover means lower training cost, faster ramp-up, and a reputation as a shop where people actually want to work. In a tight labor market, that makes you the fleet manager who solved the hiring problem everyone else is still complaining about.
You lose decades of knowledge overnight - and right now, most of that knowledge lives in his head, not on paper. Fast manual search doesn't clone him, but it does capture the workflow logic: which manual to go to first, which system to check, which fault codes mean what.
When you pair that with a search tool that surfaces the right procedure instantly, a mid-level tech can follow the same repair path your veteran would have walked. Knowledge transfer stops being a two-year apprenticeship and starts being a structured onboarding.
The personal win? When your 22-year legend finally hangs up his boots, your numbers don't crater. Your boss never even feels the gap. That's the kind of operational continuity that gets noticed - and rewarded.
When you pair that with a search tool that surfaces the right procedure instantly, a mid-level tech can follow the same repair path your veteran would have walked. Knowledge transfer stops being a two-year apprenticeship and starts being a structured onboarding.
The personal win? When your 22-year legend finally hangs up his boots, your numbers don't crater. Your boss never even feels the gap. That's the kind of operational continuity that gets noticed - and rewarded.
"Acceptable" in mining typically means 12-18 hours. World-class is under 6. That gap - on a fleet of 15 trucks with 6 repairs each per month - is roughly 540-1,080 hours of additional downtime per month you're paying for and calling normal.
At $8,000/hr, that's $4.3M-$8.6M annually sitting in the space between "acceptable" and "excellent." The floor isn't the benchmark. The benchmark is what the best operations in the world are actually doing.
And when it's time to ask for a promotion or a raise, you can point directly to the improved MTTR and highlight the millions recovered. Much better look for your $50K bonus conversation, wouldn't ya say?
At $8,000/hr, that's $4.3M-$8.6M annually sitting in the space between "acceptable" and "excellent." The floor isn't the benchmark. The benchmark is what the best operations in the world are actually doing.
And when it's time to ask for a promotion or a raise, you can point directly to the improved MTTR and highlight the millions recovered. Much better look for your $50K bonus conversation, wouldn't ya say?
60/40 means nearly half your repairs are surprises - emergency callouts, reactive scrambles, parts you didn't have stocked. A lot of those "surprises" started as a missed diagnosis. A tech who couldn't find the right procedure fast enough fixed the symptom, not the cause. The machine came back. That comeback is now an unplanned job.
Better documentation access means better first diagnoses, fewer comebacks, and your planned ratio climbing toward the 80/20 target that world-class shops run at. Emergency repairs cost 3-9x more than planned ones.
Flip that ratio and you're not just saving money - you're running a predictable, schedulable shop instead of a daily fire drill. Fleet managers who run predictable shops get asked to run bigger ones.
Better documentation access means better first diagnoses, fewer comebacks, and your planned ratio climbing toward the 80/20 target that world-class shops run at. Emergency repairs cost 3-9x more than planned ones.
Flip that ratio and you're not just saving money - you're running a predictable, schedulable shop instead of a daily fire drill. Fleet managers who run predictable shops get asked to run bigger ones.
Directly. MSHA requires documented pre-operational checks, safety defect tag-outs, and proof that techs followed correct repair procedures. When your team is navigating manuals faster and more accurately, they're also more likely to follow the exact procedure as written - which means your compliance documentation is cleaner.
Auditors don't just want to know the repair happened. They want to know it was done right, by the book. Fast, accurate manual access is part of that paper trail.
And the fleet manager who walks into an MSHA audit with clean documentation and zero procedural violations isn't just checking a compliance box - they're building a professional reputation that travels well beyond a single mine site.
Auditors don't just want to know the repair happened. They want to know it was done right, by the book. Fast, accurate manual access is part of that paper trail.
And the fleet manager who walks into an MSHA audit with clean documentation and zero procedural violations isn't just checking a compliance box - they're building a professional reputation that travels well beyond a single mine site.
Here's where most fleet managers are surprised by their own data. The typical breakdown looks like this:
15-20% walking and travel time on big sites.
10-15% waiting on parts.
10-15% searching documentation and waiting on procedure confirmation.
10% shift handover, admin, and approvals.
You can't shrink a mine site. You can't always fix your parts supply chain overnight. But documentation search? That's cuttable today - without a capital expenditure.
Shave 10% off the search bucket and your wrench time jumps from 45% to 55% - meaning each tech on your payroll is delivering meaningfully more productive hours per shift. More output from the same headcount is the exact story that justifies your department's budget - and your seat at the table when capital decisions get made.
15-20% walking and travel time on big sites.
10-15% waiting on parts.
10-15% searching documentation and waiting on procedure confirmation.
10% shift handover, admin, and approvals.
You can't shrink a mine site. You can't always fix your parts supply chain overnight. But documentation search? That's cuttable today - without a capital expenditure.
Shave 10% off the search bucket and your wrench time jumps from 45% to 55% - meaning each tech on your payroll is delivering meaningfully more productive hours per shift. More output from the same headcount is the exact story that justifies your department's budget - and your seat at the table when capital decisions get made.
They are good - but even great techs make different decisions when they're rushing, stressed, or working from memory instead of the actual spec. A first-time fix failure isn't usually about skill. It's about a torque spec done from memory that was 10% off, or a seal replaced when the real issue was upstream in the hydraulic circuit.
When the procedure is in front of them - found fast, the right revision, the right diagram - they follow it precisely. That's what pushes FTFR from the industry average of 68% toward the 90%+ world-class benchmark. The tech didn't get better. The information got better.
And when your comeback rate drops and your trucks stop returning to the shop for the same fault twice, you're the fleet manager whose shop fixes things right the first time. That reputation is currency - inside your mine and across the industry.
When the procedure is in front of them - found fast, the right revision, the right diagram - they follow it precisely. That's what pushes FTFR from the industry average of 68% toward the 90%+ world-class benchmark. The tech didn't get better. The information got better.
And when your comeback rate drops and your trucks stop returning to the shop for the same fault twice, you're the fleet manager whose shop fixes things right the first time. That reputation is currency - inside your mine and across the industry.
Cost per tonne is the ultimate scorecard - it's what the CFO tracks and what mine managers lose sleep over. It's total operating cost divided by tonnes moved. Faster repairs mean more hours of production. More hours of production means more tonnes moved without adding a single truck or operator.
The denominator grows while the numerator stays roughly flat. That's how you move cost per tonne without a capital project - by recovering the production hours you're currently leaking through slow repairs.
And when you can walk into a budget meeting and say "we improved cost per tonne by X% without a single new asset purchase," you've just made the CFO's day - and put yourself in a completely different category of fleet manager.
The denominator grows while the numerator stays roughly flat. That's how you move cost per tonne without a capital project - by recovering the production hours you're currently leaking through slow repairs.
And when you can walk into a budget meeting and say "we improved cost per tonne by X% without a single new asset purchase," you've just made the CFO's day - and put yourself in a completely different category of fleet manager.