Contents
What is a Work Order?
A Work Order (W.O.) is a document whose purpose is to record everything that occurred when performing the service. However, as there are several types of services, the work order follows certain standardization criteria. In this way, it is easier to consult later on.
Work orders help organize, control, and ensure that maintenance or service activities are performed as planned, also allowing the tracking of costs and resources.
What are the types of work orders?
Each type of work order is designed to meet different operational needs, helping ensure that tasks are completed efficiently and within established deadlines. Each type of maintenance Work Order (WO) is adapted to the type of activity or service to be performed. See below some of the most common ones:
- Corrective Work Order: This is the work order issued to fix problems or unexpected failures in equipment, systems, or infrastructure. For example, repairing a machine that broke down during operation.
- Preventive Work Order: This is the work order used to perform planned maintenance activities with the goal of avoiding future failures. It follows a regular schedule. For example, changing the machine oil every six months.
- Installation Work Order: This is issued for the installation of new equipment, systems, or infrastructure. For example, the installation of a new air conditioning system in a building.
- Improvement Work Order: This is used to implement improvements in processes, equipment, or infrastructure. For example, updating software in control systems to improve efficiency.
- Inspection Work Order: This is issued to perform regular or one-off inspections, ensuring that equipment or systems are operating within normal parameters. For example, performing a safety inspection on elevators.
- Emergency Work Order: This is the work order issued in urgent situations where immediate action is required to avoid greater damage or ensure safety. For example, immediately repairing a gas leak.
What should a maintenance work order look like?
Regardless of the type of maintenance to be performed, some of the information on the Work Order follows the same principle. They are:
Work order code: It is essential to have this information because, in most cases, work orders follow an increasing numbering sequence, which makes everything more organized and easier to look up later on.
Reason for the request: This is valuable information to guide the next steps. In a few words, the requester summarizes the problem, making it easier for the person responsible for handling the request. With the reason for the request, it will be possible to define the level of urgency, who will be responsible for execution, and which actions will be taken, among others.
Person responsible for the work order: This may be a Maintenance Manager or a leader who will oversee the activity, or the maintenance technician responsible for execution. It is important to define a person in charge to facilitate communication.
Procedures: These are the records of the services that must be performed, a checklist.
Scheduled date: This is the planned date for the service to be performed.
Performing department: Which department is responsible for performing the service. It may be the mechanical team, civil works department, electrical department, or even “third parties.”
Type of maintenance: This is also relevant information. Knowing which type of maintenance must be performed is essential for decision-making. An emergency corrective maintenance may be necessary, which will impact the production process. On the other hand, there may be a demand that is corrective maintenance but can be scheduled, avoiding, for example, a machine shutdown.
Signature: The person responsible’s signature for performing the service.
Other items, such as costs, materials, and parts needed for maintenance, and even PPE, may be very important items in work orders. It is important to remember that each company will include all the information relevant to its reality. The more information that is listed, the more comprehensive the management reports of the department will be.
Advantages of using a maintenance work order
Now that we understand what a work order is, it is easy to list some advantages:
More organization and standardization: since it is possible to track the activities already performed, it is easy for the management team to define actions based on the information obtained.
Better planning: work orders allow the planning team to define maintenance demands more efficiently. For example, defining the number of man-hours required for each activity, entering the expected cost of the necessary materials, and also defining the expected completion time of activities.
Situation diagnosis: an effective work order allows the manager to obtain efficient indicators such as MTBF and MTTR.
Historical data: of course, all this generates historical data that is essential for decision-making.
Work Orders in Engeman®
Now we come to the best part! How Engeman® software can help your company effectively manage its work orders. The Engeman® solution allows:
Opening a work order manually
Using any of our solutions, Engeman® Starter, Engeman® Lite, or Engeman® Full, it is possible to generate a manual work order, which includes those services requested due to a corrective demand. Whether due to a detected failure or a sudden breakdown. The fact is that the work order will only be generated after identifying a demand that was not scheduled for execution.
Register via service request
For cases in which companies need to perform an analysis before actually opening work orders, it is possible to open a service request. These may be created by leaders, operators, managers, in short, any user that the company allows to submit requests. When analyzed and approved, they generate work orders linked to the request, bringing more assertiveness to day-to-day demands. For this, we have the Engeman® SSW module.
Automatic work order generation
Another way for work orders to be generated in Engeman® is from maintenance plans linked to assets. Our solution generates them automatically, respecting the numbering defined for the work orders. From this generation, it is possible, for example, to track:
- The maintenance calendar
- The expected execution schedule
- Labor planning through the Gantt Chart
With work orders opened in Engeman®, the planning team monitors information such as:
- the type of maintenance
- the priority
- the criticality
- the downtime
- employee time entries
- service records, among others
But these records in the system are aimed at the Maintenance Planning and Control team and managers. We know that the maintenance team often does not have access to computers or devices. To address this, our solution includes printable maintenance work order templates. And if the templates do not meet your company’s specific demand, we can customize a template to your specific needs.
Work order templates in Engeman®
When there is no predefined work order, it is common for the maintenance technician to simply inform that a certain activity has been completed, thus releasing the equipment or machine to resume operation.
Sometimes the maintenance technician only records the services performed at the end of a tiring workday, so counting on them to report in detail what happened during their workday is a matter of luck!
Therefore, having software like Engeman® is very important because it provides work order templates so that your company has more ease in operations:
In all templates, the data is easily identified:
- Work Order Number
- General Information
- Requested Service
- Remarks
- Field for completion by the executor
- Service time entries
- Signature field
Everything is standardized, meeting the requirements of a Work Order needs! The report templates can be exported in several formats and will adapt to the format chosen for use:
Work order in Engeman® Mobile
Engeman® work orders can also be filled in via mobile devices. With the evolution of technology, agility and practicality are increasingly necessary.
If your company does not want the rework of entering into the system the services that were recorded on printed work orders, or is a company that avoids excessive paper consumption, encouraging sustainable consumption among the team, the Engeman® Mobile module is ideal, because the work order is in the palm of your hand!
Work orders are easily viewed on Mobile. See some features:
- When new activities arrive, the maintenance technician is notified.
- They can view information from the work order record.
- They can indicate the service status: “Executed Yes, No, Pending”.
- Allows attaching photos, videos, audio, etc.
- Allows entering records of hours worked.
- Allows signature.
Overall, there are several features! It is worth noting that the Engeman® Mobile module is compatible with the following operating systems: Windows, Android, and iOS.
Each maintenance work order completed on the device can later be viewed in a single report containing all service time entries, employee time entries, remarks, photos, and signatures included in the work order.
Conclusion
We know that the maintenance universe is a serious matter; you simply cannot rely on luck. Data must be correctly recorded so that this is possible. In this way, the company is able to obtain historical records in the event of an audit or simply for possible future queries that impact maintenance management.
So, the use of well-structured templates contributes to standardization, clarity in communication, and efficiency in performing activities, reducing the possibility of errors and increasing customer satisfaction.
To make issuing work orders easier, use our solution and achieve efficient and effective work order management. Contact us and learn more details!
