Work orders are the main gear of any asset maintenance operation. A good work order ensures a consistent workflow that pushes departments from point A to point B.
Companies with vast organizational operations need effective management to keep up with the frequency of work requests. In fact, according to a survey from Plant Engineering, 34% of downtime failure is due to unscheduled equipment maintenance.
This is where computerized maintenance management systems come into play. Good CMMS solution enables maintenance teams to upgrade and optimize work orders while refining their overall maintenance strategy. However, this can be challenging for maintenance teams if work orders are improperly understood.
This article will simplify maintenance work orders and explain how to execute them step-by-step for a good work order.
What is a work order?
A work order is a detailed document that includes all the information on a maintenance task. It includes all the necessary processes, standard protocols, and relevant outlines for the completion of the task. Ideally, a good work order includes all the details of the requesters, involved technicians, the scope of the job, the assigned personnel, and the expected outcomes.
Important Note – There is a difference between work requests and work orders!
Before you confuse the two (which are also interchangeably used across industries), a work request is the initiation of a task pushed by non-maintenance teams towards maintenance teams. For instance, a machine operator may request regular maintenance by submitting a work request. On the other hand, a work order is an accepted work request that is viewed and accepted by the maintenance manager.
Types of maintenance work orders
A work maintenance order is typically categorized into five types in CMMS software.
Although based on a company’s operational spectrum, there can be further subtypes of work orders. However, the following are some of the most common types of work orders that are more widely understood and acknowledged across different organizations.
General work order
A general work order is a simple task type that does not categorically need specified maintenance attention. For example, a general work order may be created to set up new equipment, paint it, and/or mount it to a new place. The instructions are fairly simple and are often also generated for routine maintenance of aging assets.
Preventive work order
A preventive work order is scheduled routine checkups of assets to prevent any abrupt machine downtime or failures. It further falls under reactive maintenance and predictive maintenance.
Preventive work orders are strictly scheduled maintenance tasks that demand a specific time interval for the completion of the task. It includes specific resource requirements, relevant instructions, checklists, and notes for each of the tasks.
You can read more about reactive maintenance and predictive maintenance if you are gauging which work order would suit your model the best.
Inspection work order
An inspection work order is generated when a technician is required to check the health of an asset. Often, these work orders are made at a predetermined period to eliminate any asset downtime complications.
Once through the inspection, if the maintenance technician finds an asset nearing any functional compromise, they may create a new work order to fix it.
Emergency work order
An emergency work order is pushed when an unforeseen asset failure occurs that requires repairing right away. Emergency work orders are also different from other work orders. They are a form of reactive maintenance.
A maintenance technician can add further details in the work order about the reason behind asset compromise, the repair breakdown, maintenance resources utilized in the fixation process, and what measures must be taken for future prevention.
Corrective maintenance work order
A corrective maintenance work order is initiated if the technician discovers issues during the general, emergency, or preventive maintenance checkup. A corrective maintenance work order is typically created as a secondary step after a preventive maintenance checkup. This work order isolates the technical issue so that the asset can be repaired promptly.
What is a work order lifecycle?
A work order is divided into three main phases—a lifecycle—i.e., creation, completion, and recording. Each phase is further divided into six steps that include task identification, requesting a work order, scheduling the work order, assigning and completing the work, and lastly, documenting and closing of the work order.
An in-detail analysis of the work order might also be done depending on the nature of the work requested.
The following is a step-by-step method of how a detailed work order can be composed;
Step 1: Task identification
Task identification falls into two groups: planned maintenance and unplanned maintenance. Planned maintenance outlines all routine inspections and related tasks, whereas unplanned maintenance includes all the emergency and unforeseen tasks like the unexpected breakdown of a functional asset.
Step 2: Maintenance request is created
Once the task is finalized, all the related details are documented and submitted to the maintenance team for review and approval. The maintenance request may vary based on the nature of the task. In the case of scheduled maintenance, the work requests may be prompted within a time frame.
Step 3: Work order is prioritized
Prioritizing work orders is crucial for maintenance teams, especially if the equipment and assets are time-sensitive. Work orders must highlight the level of priority based on what maintenance triggers have been mentioned in the work request. The work request priority also keeps the maintenance team accountable for what may fall short through the cracks.
Step 4: Work order is assigned and completed
Once the work order is submitted and approved, the work order is assigned to the technician for task completion. Based on the kind of work order requested, the technician may involve other maintenance team members or even submit further work requests in case of corrective or emergency work orders.
Step 5: The work order is closed and documented
A work order can only be closed until all of its tasks and requirements are fully completed. A maintenance manager is also required to sign off the work orders. It is also imperative to understand the documentation of the work order. This is important for future referencing, building asset histories, and preparing the audits for other related work orders.
Step 6: The work order is fully analyzed and/or reworked
Completed work orders offer valuable information on the equipment and resources used. They allow maintenance managers to evaluate and analyze the processes that go into work orders to fine-tune the operational health of an asset. It may also help managers spot any missed steps or alterations in case the issues arise again.
What should go into a work order?
Maintenance managers can streamline the execution of the task at hand by creating an organized work order and taking a step-by-step approach.
However, depending on the scope of company-wide operations, there are a lot of work order templates to choose from. The most conventional work order templates acknowledged across most companies require a well-structured breakdown. The details that must be mentioned in a good work order are;
- Asset Information
- Task Description
- Scope of Work
- Resources Required
- Health and Safety Notes
- Date Information
- Requester Information
- Expected Outcome Information
- Completion Date (Tentative)
- Actual Completion Date
- Expected hours of work
- Actual hours of work
- Tasks checklist
- Task priority
- Assigned to
- Associated documents
- Related notes
Best practices for managing a work order
A standardized course of action for managing work orders makes the organizational flow more convenient. Here are some proven best practices for improving the durability of your work orders.
How you organize your goals and measure them
It is crucial to understand why work orders should be set up. Start by identifying your organization’s maintenance goals. Next, make sure you understand the KPIs associated with those goals. Once you understand your metrics, you must define your team’s capacity while identifying what metrics must be followed. The information you gather can later help teams develop a maintenance strategy.
Define the work order roles and responsibilities
Clearly defining your roles and responsibilities for each part of your work order is necessary. Create an outline of who can create, analyze, assign, and overview the work orders and what responsibilities can be assigned for each role. This helps maintenance teams eliminate duplications and avoid miscommunication.
Determine the work order frequency
The number of asset maintenance steps often determines the frequency of work orders in use. One of the best ways to control the frequency without exhausting your resources is to create a preventive maintenance schedule. This also helps lower the costs of reactive maintenance.
Establish work order triggers
Determine what triggers can be automated within your operational process. This may include compliance documentation, failed preventive maintenance follow-ups, or any other related work that needs to be done. While a maintenance team may have its own set of trigger protocols, some of the common types of maintenance triggers include:
- Time-based
- Event-based
- Breakdown emergency
- Usage-based
- Condition-based
Have a thorough work order post-mortem
Have a good, thorough maintenance strategy in place. This helps cultivate a lot of hindsight and learning that can be applied to streamline maintenance processes.
Create better work orders with EZO CMMS
Work orders have been an integral part of pushing business operations. While spreadsheets and manual handling have been a convenient form of creating work orders, having a one-stop real-time solution is what companies now look for.
A computerized maintenance system goes beyond a basic work order. The latest cloud technology allows multiple maintenance task allocation, tracking, and analysis, all in real-time, in one place, so you need a powerful CMMS driven by real-time data.
EZO CMMS is a leading CMMS software specifically designed for companies that manage complex workflows requiring a powerful and efficient solution to streamline their work request management and orders.
It offers a scheduled maintenance planner, a thorough dashboard of inventory management, detailed schedules for maintenance updates, templates for more organized workflows, and advanced asset profiling.
