Wrench Time: What It Is and How to Improve It
Your techs are paid for eight hours. On most teams, barely three of them go into an actual repair. Here’s where the other five are going — and how to get them back.
What is wrench time?
Wrench time is the share of a technician’s paid time spent actively working on maintenance tasks — the hands-on portion where a tool is in hand and work is getting done. It excludes travel to and from the job, waiting for parts or permits, hunting for tools or drawings, filling out paperwork, and idle time between assignments. If a technician is paid for eight hours but spends three of them physically executing repairs and PMs, wrench time is roughly 38%.
The metric matters because it reveals how much of your labor spend actually reaches the asset. Two teams can have identical headcount and identical hours, yet one gets far more maintenance done — the difference is almost always wrench time. It’s one of the clearest indicators of whether your work order management process is helping technicians or getting in their way.
What is a typical wrench time benchmark?
Widely cited industry figures put average wrench time in reactive, unplanned environments somewhere around 25–35%, while well-planned and scheduled operations are generally cited as reaching 50–60% or higher. Treat these as general benchmarks rather than hard rules — measurement methods vary, and what counts as “productive” differs from one plant to the next. The useful takeaway isn’t the exact number; it’s the size of the gap between reactive and planned work.
Here’s where a typical technician’s day tends to go before any improvement work:
| Where the time goes | What’s happening | Roughly |
|---|---|---|
| Wrench time | Hands-on repairs, PMs, inspections | ~25–35% |
| Travel & staging | Walking to the asset, moving between jobs | ~15–20% |
| Waiting | Parts, permits, approvals, another trade | ~15–20% |
| Looking for things | Tools, drawings, manuals, the right SKU | ~10–15% |
| Admin & breaks | Paperwork, closeout, scheduled breaks | ~15–20% |
The ranges are illustrative, but the pattern holds: the biggest losses are usually travel, waiting, and searching — all of which are addressable before you ever ask a technician to work faster.
How do you measure wrench time?
You measure wrench time by dividing hands-on task time by total paid time over a defined period, then tracking the trend. There are three practical ways to capture the numerator, each with a trade-off between accuracy and effort:
- Work sampling — an observer records what technicians are doing at random intervals over several days. Accurate, but labor-intensive and only a snapshot.
- Technician self-logging — techs record actual time on each task, ideally on a mobile device at the point of work. Low cost, and it improves as logging becomes routine.
- CMMS work order data — actual labor hours captured against each work order roll up automatically. Once your team logs time consistently, this gives you an ongoing measurement instead of a one-off study.
However you capture it, be consistent about what counts as wrench time so the trend line is honest. A single audited number is useful once; a repeatable measurement you can watch on your CMMS KPI dashboards is what actually drives improvement.
What kills wrench time — and how do you raise it?
Wrench time is killed by everything that happens around the task, not the task itself — and the fix for nearly every killer is planning, scheduling, and a system that puts information in the technician’s hand. When a job is planned before it’s assigned, parts are staged, the procedure is attached, and the technician arrives ready to work instead of ready to start searching.
| Wrench-time killer | How planning + a CMMS fixes it |
|---|---|
| Waiting for parts | Job plan lists required parts; inventory is checked and staged before the work is scheduled |
| Hunting for information | Procedures, manuals, asset history, and safety notes attached to the work order |
| Excess travel | Scheduling groups nearby jobs and batches PMs by location and asset |
| Reactive firefighting | A strong PM program shifts work from emergency breakdowns to planned tasks |
| Paperwork & closeout | Mobile work orders let techs log time, parts, and notes at the asset |
| Runaway backlog | A managed, prioritized backlog feeds a realistic weekly schedule |
The single biggest lever is the shift from reactive to proactive work. Every emergency breakdown drags a technician away from planned tasks and multiplies travel, waiting, and searching — which is exactly why planned versus unplanned maintenance has such an outsized effect on wrench time. Pair that with disciplined maintenance backlog management so the schedule is built from real, prioritized work rather than whatever’s on fire that morning.
Rule of thumb: an hour spent planning a job typically saves several hours of a technician’s time in the field. Planning is the cheapest wrench time you can buy.
Turn planning into wrench time with eWorkOrders
For over 30 years, eWorkOrders has helped maintenance teams — including operations at Honda and King River Packaging — put job plans, parts, procedures, and history in the technician’s hand so more of the day is spent on the asset. Mobile work orders, a real PM engine, and live KPI dashboards make wrench time something you can see and improve, backed by a 4.9 rating on both Capterra and G2.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a good wrench time percentage?
There’s no universal target, but reactive operations are widely cited around 25–35%, while well-planned and scheduled teams are often cited at 50–60% or more. Treat these as general benchmarks and focus on improving your own trend rather than hitting a fixed number.
What’s the difference between wrench time and utilization?
Utilization usually measures how much of a technician’s time is assigned to work orders, while wrench time measures how much is spent actively performing the task. A technician can be fully utilized on paper yet still have low wrench time if travel, waiting, and searching eat the day.
How does a CMMS improve wrench time?
A CMMS raises wrench time by planning jobs before they’re assigned — staging parts, attaching procedures and asset history, and batching work by location — then capturing actual labor hours so you can measure the trend. It also shifts work from reactive breakdowns to scheduled PMs, which removes the biggest source of lost time.
How do I start measuring wrench time?
Start by defining what counts as hands-on task time, then capture it consistently — a short work-sampling study for a baseline, or actual labor hours logged against work orders for an ongoing measurement. Once technicians log time routinely in a CMMS, the metric updates automatically on your dashboards.
About the author: Janet Jaquis is a CMMS software specialist with over 8 years at eWorkOrders, where she develops educational content, technical guides, and implementation resources for maintenance management professionals. Her work covers preventive maintenance, work order management, asset reliability, inventory management, and CMMS implementation across manufacturing, healthcare, government, food and beverage, and facilities operations, grounded in customer case studies, industry research, and ongoing engagement with the eWorkOrders product team.
