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Hi Sean,
 I think we are all on the quest for 95%+ uptime for interactive exhibits.
We at the Museum of Science, Boston achieve this on a regular basis, but it
takes a lot of work. First, we have over 1,100 exhibits of which 500+ are
interactive. We consider an exhibit to be interactive if it has a visitor
interface. This varies from simple push buttons to Hearphones that relay
information to video presentations to complex computer programs. We keep an
inventory of all our exhibits in a database, which is constantly updated as
exhibits are added and removed. Every 2 weeks I print out the inventory of
interactive exhibits and walk the exhibit halls and "be the visitor". I try
all the exhibits, making notes as to what is or isn't working. If it isn't
working properly when I try it I consider it broken, just as a visitor
would. It takes about a full day to this, but it gives us an accurate
snapshot of what our guests encountered during their visit to the museum.
This "walk through" is shared with the maintenance staff and assignments are
made based upon the work required.

 Even at 95% operational we still have an average of 25 broken exhibits at
any given time. At MOS Boston we have a separate Exhibit Maintenance staff
within the Exhibits division that just focuses on the exhibit halls.
Including myself, there are 14 members of the Maintenance staff that include
skills in electronics, computers, carpentry, electro-mechanical, graphics
and lighting. The crew is divided into 2 shifts to allow for a 7 day
operation. The technicians are assigned to 2 -3 person teams and are
assigned specific areas of the museum to watch over. Their responsibilities
in these assigned areas include preparing the museum for our daily visitors,
inspection rounds of exhibits in their areas in the morning and afternoon,
immediate minor repairs, assigned repair work and to report back to the
supervisor any major repair problems so they can be assigned based on skills
needed. If we can't get a repair completed we can turn to our Technical
Design or Production staff for support. There is much more to this
operation, but that's the general overview. 

 In 2006 we commissioned a study on the visitors perception of broken
exhibits and made a presentation at the ASTC conference in Louisville. If
you or anyone else reading this are interested in this study let me know and
I can make it available.

Good Luck,
Dan MacDonald
Manager, Exhibit Maintenance
Museum of Science, Boston

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