What is a Work Order?
A Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) Work Order may be a request for repair, restoration or replacement of equipment or asset. A Work Order request for a job that needs to be done can be scheduled or directly assigned to a technician. Work Orders can be generated by a customer request, internally within an organization, as part of a regularly scheduled maintenance program, or created as a follow-up to Inspections or Audits.
Why generate a Work Order?
The purpose of a work order is to initiate a task, clarify what is to be done, specify completion dates, and give special instructions as needed. CMMS work order management software also helps organizations manage and maintain data on projects as well as on resources, expenses, and labor. Organizations have the flexibility to manage and influence current and upcoming work, analyze data to make improvements, affect expenses, control labor costs, and remain compliant.
What are the types of CMMS Work Orders and functions?
Standard Work Order
A standard work order is a non-critical maintenance task that isn’t considered preventive maintenance, inspection, emergency, safety, or corrective maintenance function. Some examples are: removing the old equipment, setting up new equipment, and non-critical maintenance work such as projects whose purpose solely is modernization or cosmetic.
Preventive Maintenance
A preventive maintenance work order is an essential tool for organizations looking to ensure the effectiveness of their equipment as well as to extend the life of their assets. This work order gives users the ability to schedule routine maintenance tasks performed on individual facilities or groups of assets. The preventive maintenance work order gives users the ability to control, plan, schedule, and identify the materials, parts, and labor to do the work within a specific timeframe. The advantages of preventive maintenance are to keep existing equipment in good working condition, prevent equipment downtime, increase the life expectancy of assets, decrease the number of major repairs, and control expenses.
Prepare for Inspections
When creating a work order, you can define a set of inspection points requiring a maintenance technician to audit or inspect an asset-based on that predetermined set of parameters. An example would be: during preventive maintenance or during an inspection, a maintenance technician would be required to run through all the items in the set of parameters that are defined in the work order. Also, if the technician should identify a problem, then a new work order can be created to correct that problem.
Reactive\Emergency
A reactive or emergency work order is generated when equipment breakdowns or a facility failure occurs and creates an unsafe environment, or a critical asset needs to be repaired immediately. An emergency work order is used to record and track any work performed that was not planned beforehand. Reactive work orders give maintenance technicians the ability to provide detailed information on what caused the breakdown, what actions were taken to fix it, and what can be done to prevent it in the future.
Corrective Maintenance
A corrective maintenance work order is generated to identify, isolate, and rectify faults so that equipment, machines, or systems can be restored to their optimal condition. A corrective maintenance work order is planned and scheduled because the fault was identified in a reasonable time and was not considered an emergency.
What are the benefits of a Work Order?
CMMS work orders put you in control of maintenance needs, help improve performance, reduce cost, and result in greater overall efficiency for a business or organization. A CMMS work order system gives users the ability to organize and manage work requests so: nothing gets overlooked; work can be scheduled to be done at a convenient time; labor time and costs can be controlled, and ordering of supplies and materials can be done in advance to take advantage of purchasing and shipping deals. All of these benefits result in increased efficiency, productivity, safety, compliance, and reduced costs.
Why are Work Orders important?
A good CMMS work order software system is valuable for any size company, in any industry. The work order management tools enable organizations to manage and control current and upcoming work; to analyze data to make improvements and key business decisions on investments, expense control, and labor costs; and to meet safety and compliance requirements. Increased efficiency and productivity are achieved by being able to put in a work order from any computer or mobile device, from anywhere at any time; by being able to update information in real-time; and by being able to maintain and instantly share documents and manuals securely.
