Whether a small business or an enterprise, you likely schedule multiple maintenance and service events daily. But do you accurately track how much this work is costing your organization?
Unsupervised service events can lead to escalating expenses due to a lack of transparency, inefficient management, and many other factors. Automated work order tracking mitigates these concerns by enabling you to manage costs, labor hours, and asset expenditures, all from an automated, centralized platform.
Let’s first understand what exactly work order tracking is.
What is work order tracking?
Work order tracking involves tracking and managing work orders in an organization. Maintenance teams keep track of every stage of the work order process, from creating the work request to approving it and converting it into a work order, assigning the work order to a technician, and then closing out the work order.
In this process, the maintenance teams keep track of the work order status, time spent on each work order, the labor cost associated with it, the inventory associated with it, and the work performed by the technician.
With effective work order tracking in place, organizations can ensure maintenance requests and all related tasks are managed accurately and efficiently.
Types of work orders
A formal work order system can provide you with an efficient solution to prioritize and coordinate business tasks. A standardized procedure to create a maintenance plan and then track work orders results in increased efficiency and productivity. Companies can run several different types of work orders:
- General work order: A general work order entails any maintenance task that does not fall into the preventive or emergency category. Usually, general work orders include tasks like installing new equipment, taking down old machinery, or painting walls.
- Maintenance work orders: There are various subtypes of maintenance work orders that can be scheduled:
- Preventive maintenance: The most common type of maintenance work order, preventive work orders are scheduled regularly to perform preventive maintenance and keep equipment functional throughout the year. They require maintenance scheduling and include important documents like checklists and vendor instructions.
- Inspection: In order to reduce equipment downtime, it is crucial to run routine inspection audits. An inspection work order may lead to a corrective action being taken to prevent further damage.
- Corrective maintenance: A corrective maintenance work order usually follows inspection or preventive maintenance to address a problem discovered by the technician. Such work orders involve repair, replacement, or procurement of new equipment.
How can automated work order tracking control costs?
A cloud-based maintenance management system enables you to create work orders for all business items. Being centrally accessible, work orders can be assigned to staff users and vendors. A work order in progress can be continuously updated for additional costs incurred throughout the maintenance event.
Work order tracking in real-time enables you to run seamless workflows while recording all relevant details. A robust work order management system not only reduces downtime but also helps save on extra costs incurred by the business.
Let’s discuss how work order management can help you save money and lower costs:
1. Create work order bundles
For companies with several offices, work orders are likely to be dispersed across different locations. There might be some high-traffic locations that need maintenance quite often. A good idea would be to list all maintenance tasks for one location under a single work order. This reduces the number of maintenance trips that would be made for each location. Also, you don’t have to call up the technician again and again.
Listing down service events also enables you to prioritize tasks and address the critical ones urgently. For instance, a bakery sets up a work order for its kitchen. The best way would be to inspect and note down all electric appliances that need to be serviced or replaced. Any other urgent service tasks like leaking sinks can also be put on the same work order.
When you have all tasks consolidated for a location, you can manage a single maintenance trip and reduce billable hours.
2. Link in compliance safety requirements
Failure to maintain a safe working environment for employees can result in hefty fines and violations. This is especially true when working with heavy equipment and machinery that needs to be handled with expert care. For this purpose, work order tracking enables you to link in safety and compliance regulations for each maintenance job.
Every work order created on a cloud-based platform has the option of adding related documents. Admins can upload compliance and safety rules so that technicians can follow the guidelines easily. Moreover, having all related regulations under work orders prepares you for an internal audit when the time comes. Strictly following maintenance protocols reduces your chances of incurring extra expenses such as fines and penalties.
3. Extend equipment longevity
Work order tracking involves keeping a record of miscellaneous service and maintenance activities scheduled to reduce downtime. By ensuring timely work order management, a company can lower the chances of unexpected breakdowns and, ultimately, productivity delays. Improved equipment functionality eliminates the chances of sudden monetary expenses and increases equipment lifespan.
Undetected downtime results in reactive maintenance, which is costly and time-consuming as it halts the workflow. The best way to avoid losses is to schedule work orders in time and follow through with the progress.
4. Speed up issue resolution
With a manual work order system it takes time to deploy service tasks and this may end up delaying the final projects. An automated work order tracking solution lets you create a maintenance or general service task on a centrally accessible platform. From here the admin can upload the required checklists, compliance and safety guidelines. Other than this, inventory required can also be added to estimate accurate work order costs.
Having all related data in one place speeds up issue resolution and prevents extra delays that result from getting all resources on board. You can directly contact the vendors by sending them an email and get the work order started. Moreover, technicians can log into the app from anywhere, check the status of the work order, and expedite it if needed. Such actions help reduce downtime to a minimum so that production loss is minimized.
5. Accurately forecast replacement parts
The majority of maintenance work requires replacement equipment parts. Lack of robust inventory management for service tasks can lead to overspending by 12% to 20% of the original cost. Failure to find the right equipment parts on time can lead to last-minute procurement deals, which can be expensive.
With work order tracking, you can accurately forecast the inventory items that will be required for a certain task. Tracking software enables you to link modules together and run streamlined inventory management for maintenance events. Automated procurement lets you order exactly what you need just in time so that the work order can progress smoothly.
Read more: Maintenance Work Order Best Practices
6. Track WO KPIs for future trends
According to statistics, the ROI for organizations using business intelligence and analytics is 1300%. This shows that business data plays a critical role in the bottom line of a company. A cloud-based system stores all history related to completed work orders, including maintenance parts, inventory and labor hours.
Actionable data can be used to run reports to analyze budget expenses and explore downtime reasons. A detailed insight can help reveal underlying causes for production delays, which can then prevent similar cases in the future. In addition to this, work order tracking enables you to identify key performance indicators (KPIs) for the future, which can yield higher rates of returns for the business.
Tips to track work orders accurately
We have discussed how we can save money and reduce operational costs by tracking our work orders effectively. Many maintenance work order best practices can be followed to ensure work orders are processed smoothly. Now, let’s talk about some best tips for keeping track of our work orders to make sure the maintenance operations run smoothly.
1. Use an automated tracking solution
Organizations can use an automated tracking solution to track work orders effectively. They can implement an advanced CMMS system to track the progress of work orders and ensure all maintenance operations are running smoothly. Using the maintenance management software, admins and supervisors can assign work orders to technicians and add detailed instructions on processing them. This ensures all parties involved in the workflow are aware of their responsibilities, and that work is completed on time.
2. Customize your work orders
You can customize your work orders according to your business needs. You can create customized printout templates for work orders, edit custom fields within a work order even after it has been completed, and include custom subtstates for work orders to track the progress of each state within the work order. This helps you keep a check on each stage of the workflow and be more specific in tracking the progress of maintenance tasks.
3. Monitor the entire work order workflow
One of the significant tips to track your work orders effectively is to keep a close eye on the entire workflow, not just the result. It is important to track the progress of your work orders, from start to completion, as it prevents you from missing deadlines and disappointing your customers. This way, you can solve the issues that arise during the process before the work is completed. For instance, when you’re using an automated work tracking solution like CMMS, you can know when a work order has been created, which technician has been assigned to work on it, how many hours he/she has worked on it, what tools are being used to complete it, how much work is done, and how much time will it take to get the work completed.
4. Keep your staff up-to-date
Another tip for tracking your work orders effectively is to keep your staff informed about changes within the work order process. Sometimes, several changes in the requirements can occur when a work order is in progress. A customer may also send additional requests to complete the work. Therefore, keeping your staff up-to-date about changes in work orders is important to maintain a productive and organized work environment. For example, while using an advanced CMMS system, you can set automated notifications or alerts via email or SMS for your staff so they are informed about the changes in their work orders or when they are asked to work on a new task.
5. Allow customers to track work order status
It is crucial to let your customers track the status of their work orders throughout the process so they can feel they have control over the whole situation. This will help them calm down and give them confidence that work is being done on their tasks without delays. Several advanced CMMS systems allow customers to track their work orders by sending them automated alerts or notifications of any updates in their work orders.
6. Regularly follow up with customers
Another best way to track your work orders effectively and ensure your customers are happy is to check with them regularly to know they are satisfied with the work done. Continuous feedback from customers can help you understand whether they will use your services in the future. At the same time, you can also ask them to rate and review your services on third-party software review websites such as Google, Software Advice, Capterra, G2, etc. This can help other prospective customers know about your business and make smarter decisions regarding whether they want to use your services.
