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What is a Checklist and What Is Its Purpose?
A maintenance checklist is a tool and a practice that helps organize and ensure that all necessary tasks are performed systematically and efficiently. It can be used in various contexts, such as equipment, vehicles, buildings, machinery, and others.
It is especially helpful in preventive maintenance processes, as by inspecting your assets at certain intervals and documenting the collected data, the chances of identifying inappropriate equipment behavior at the right time are much higher. This way, you can make decisions in advance, before the worst happens.
Thus, its main goal is to identify whether there are any irregularities or non-conformities through the performance and behavior of the assets. The checklist can be created in several ways and contains various types of information, as we will see below!
How to Create a Checklist?
A checklist can be created in several ways, and it should include information relevant to your work process. It is irrelevant to use ready-made templates from the internet if you do not identify your real needs and what information is truly necessary for your reality. You can create a checklist in the following ways:
- Spreadsheets: create checklist templates in Excel or Google Sheets.
- Notebooks: use a specific notebook for notes and make checklists on its pages.
- Digital files: create a document in programs such as Word or Google Docs, PDF and print it, or work directly with the digital file.
- Through a work order: if you attach the tasks of your checklist procedure to a work order, your checklist procedure can become more complete and effective. This is because, through a work order, you will have access to various additional pieces of information that can be useful in decision-making.
There are several ways to create a checklist for asset behavior verification. However, it is also important to identify the actual information you need to know about your equipment. It is worth noting that every case will be different, as you must consider what most impacts the reality and needs of your company.
Let’s look at some important information to consider in a checklist:
- Company and unit identification
- Identification of the person responsible for the activity
- Equipment identification, if possible, with an image
- Possibility to link materials consumed in the service performed
- List of tasks to be completed
- Images of completed tasks
- Responsible person’s signature
We have listed only a few pieces of information that may complement your activity checklist, but as mentioned earlier, this depends on your company’s needs.
And since we mentioned the possibility of including your checklist tasks in a work order, it is important to know how to create a complete work order where you can first associate these tasks.
How to Create a Work Order and Include My Checklist Tasks?
Creating a work order is an important process to organize tasks and monitor the execution of your company’s maintenance services.
The goal of a work order is to provide a formal document that organizes, records, and guides the execution of specific tasks or services. Through it, you will see everything that was or was not performed regarding one or more planned or even unplanned services.
Here are some steps to create an effective work order:
- Identify the work order: assign a unique number or code to the work order to facilitate tracking.
- Set the scheduled date: it is important to set a deadline for the work order to be executed. This is part of planning and organization.
- Calculate the required materials: list the materials that will be needed to perform the service, so you can compare what was spent with what was planned.
- Plan the workforce: defining who will execute the work order is extremely important, as you will know the person responsible for the work performed and the time spent to complete it.
- Attach images of the completed tasks: linking images of each service performed and also of the complete work order is a huge advantage. Being able to view the completed service directly from the work order, without needing to go to the area for verification, saves time and brings convenience.
- Create maintenance plans with the Task Checklist: to streamline the process, you can create maintenance plans with all scheduled tasks and associate this plan with the work orders. By linking them, all the processes in your checklist will already be in the work order, ready to be performed.
Best of all, Engeman® software features an extremely comprehensive work order, with all this information and much more, see below:
Accurately recording all tasks is extremely important so the system can provide reliable reports. However, we know this is a task that is not always performed as it should be, so we must rely on tools that will assist with these records.
In this case, Engeman® is software that will facilitate recording information in a work order so it is filled out as correctly as possible, as we will see below.
Work Order with Engeman®
Engeman® is a complete CMMS software that will assist you in all maintenance-related tasks, and with work orders, it is no different. As seen above, in the work order’s photographic report, you can include valuable information to supervise your entire maintenance process and the activities performed by maintenance technicians.
But Engeman® does much more than that! Our software offers additional modules to make maintenance tasks easier to perform.
One of these modules is Mobile, which is aimed at technicians and brings more convenience for filling out a work order, for example.
Mobile is designed to work on smartphones, tablets, or even computers. One of its greatest advantages is that the technician can work offline, as we know that many work environments do not have a stable network, but this will not prevent your maintenance technician from recording work order tasks.
With Mobile, you will gain several advantages, such as:
- Reduced paper usage: with it, you will not need to work with printed work orders. Everything the technician records on the device will go directly to the management module.
- Optimization of time and resources: with Mobile, the technician has easy and fast access to work orders, speeding up the execution process since you will not waste time with manual distribution of printed work orders.
- Team autonomy: by using Mobile, your team will have more autonomy in processes and will perform tasks more efficiently, as they will not depend as much on the manager to distribute these activities.
- Ease of operation: Mobile is a user-friendly module, very easy to operate, and designed to facilitate technicians’ data entry.
We can see some data entry tools in a work order using Mobile. Of course, besides these features focused on work orders, Mobile offers several other tools, such as:
- Service request management.
- Report consultation.
- Geolocation: Capturing latitude and longitude coordinates and searching via Google Maps;
- Data collection and recording, such as trips and refueling, asset-related events, and cumulative data collection, among others.
If you need more efficiency and agility for your maintenance team, Mobile will certainly help. Not only in recording work order data and facilitating the execution of the activity checklist, but in many other tasks as well.
Conclusion
From this article, we can conclude that using a checklist linked to work orders is an important way to make processes more efficient. It helps standardize tasks and responsibilities, reducing errors and increasing clarity among teams.
Additionally, this practice facilitates the identification of assets that need improvement. Thus, this approach can be a major differentiator, ensuring service quality and increasing the reliability and availability of equipment.
To learn more about this topic, schedule a demonstration with our team. We look forward to hearing from you!
