Generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications like ChatGPT are dominating the news, and knowledge workers—professionals who use information, creativity, and critical thinking skills—are paying close attention.
Knowledge work categories include creatives (writers and artists), intellectuals (professors and economists), and experts (architects and computer engineers). Anyone interested in generative AI can try to predict the impact of this new technology. AI and automation have the power to reshape the future of work through knowledge work automation (KWA).
AI and automation
Knowledge work automation uses various technologies to empower knowledge workers to optimize their core skills. KWA speeds up tasks like document management, content management, workflow management, and security and compliance. KWA powers new best practices and automation, letting knowledge workers generate more value for their employers.
The average knowledge worker spends 40 percent of their day on tasks that do not require their core skills. Over a billion people worldwide spend almost four hours a day drafting emails, organizing documents, and checking regulatory compliance rules. These business processes don’t maximize a knowledge worker’s time. Knowledge work automation assists with these chores, and more, allowing knowledge workers to focus on important and more stimulating activities.
What does knowledge work automation do?
People often misunderstand the main use of AI in knowledge work and automation. First, different types of structured tasks can be automated without AI. Second, AI can help with less structured and creative tasks like creating art, writing code, and designing buildings in tight collaboration with people. Finally, the combination of AI and automation helps reduce the number of tasks that humans don’t need to do.
Here are four vital tasks that knowledge work automation can take off a professional’s plate:
Document management: Capturing, tracking, and storing electronic documents—PDFs, word processing files, schematics, and legal documents. Such tools are faster and more efficient than manual data entry. Document management software can track metadata, handle data integration and data validation, organize storage, and more without requiring time-consuming input from knowledge workers.
Content management: Collecting, retrieving, delivering, and governing institutional information in any format. Content management handles every phase of the document lifecycle from creation to storage or deletion. Document management, meanwhile, focuses on storing and sharing documents internally within an organization.
Workflow management: Identifying, organizing, and coordinating a given set of tasks to produce assets. Workflow management optimizes a company’s best practices and operating procedures to increase productivity, remove repetitive tasks, and eliminate errors. New projects require knowledge workers to develop their own best practices and workflows. Doing so through trial-and-error is inefficient and unrewarding.
Security and compliance: All companies face security risks and must follow several sets of regulations and compliance standards. Maintaining regulatory compliance and data security can be a full-time job for a trained expert. Knowledge workers are often undertrained for compliance and security tasks. Such assignments waste time better spent on actual knowledge work.
The future of knowledge work
Knowledge work automation leverages artificial intelligence, machine learning, and large language models, automating everything that’s not true knowledge work. AI eliminates information chaos, captures institutional knowledge, and analyzes existing documentation, creating and finalizing documents, emails, standardized forms, and more.
KWA gives knowledge workers document summaries in any language and generates content based on unstructured samples or prompts. KWA automates workflows that facilitate best practices. An industry-leading knowledge work automation platform creates an employee experience that attracts and stimulates skilled professionals, and eliminates nearly four hours of less interesting and low-value work per day.
FAQ: What you need to know about automation
What is the difference between an office automation system and a knowledge work automation system?
As its name implies, office automation helps to efficiently run an office. It supports data workers and project managers and enables video conferencing. Knowledge work automation empowers knowledge users to work more effectively and leverage knowledge of their organization. KWA fills knowledge gaps, guides knowledge intensive workflows, and ensures knowledge access for all team members.
Why should we use knowledge work automation?
KWA is the future of work and the future of automation. Automation tools help thought workers perform at higher levels and improve productivity by automating workflows. The long-term benefits of knowledge automation will strengthen efficiency in any work environment. KWA is already reducing human error and saving time for any business operation.
Why is the automation of knowledge work so disruptive?
Any kind of work automation is disruptive and knowledge work automation is no exception. KWA uses advances in computer science and information technology to build and make large-scale changes to thought work. A thought worker uses automation software to handle non-essential tasks and reduce costs on any product or service.
While the term might sound ominous, failure codes are nothing to fear. They’re simply alphanumeric codes specifying the reason an asset breaks down.
With failure codes, technicians can quickly select a pre-set code when completing a work order to explain what went wrong. And by classifying repairs this way, maintenance managers and reliability engineers can spot the trends that will help prevent the same thing from happening again down the road.
Underlying failure codes is the problem ? cause ? action (PCA) framework, which works like a decision tree. A maintenance team looks at all the possible failure modes and corresponding solutions they could potentially encounter, then joins the problems, causes, and actions (solutions) together in a failure code hierarchy. These custom PCA codes are specific to each operation.
Let’s take a look at a real-world example of the problem ? cause ? action framework at work in an automotive repair shop:
In this example, the maintenance team might have created failure code B03 to represent the problem of “shot bearing,” C05 to represent the cause “bearing fatigue,” and D01 to indicate the solution “replace bearing.”
When it comes time for the technician to perform maintenance on the asset, they can document exactly what happened and log that valuable data for future reference. And while many maintenance issues require some degree of troubleshooting, with failure codes future technicians will see all possible solutions to the identified problem/cause, speeding up the repair process and reducing downtime.
Utilizing failure codes can help your organization:
Speed up the troubleshooting process
Use failure data to make and justify purchases and CapEx decisions
Let’s say you own a fleet of backhoes and recently they’ve been breaking down a lot. In the past, you would have to manually search through work order histories to try to spot failure trends and common causes. With failure codes, you can instantly spot repeat offenders.
Let’s say that in this case, the failure analysis reveals pneumatic hose failure to be the reason behind the majority of those backhoe work orders. Armed with this information, you can now investigate why your organization is suffering so many of these hose failures. It could be operator error, temperature fluctuations, supplier defects, incorrect installation, etc. The point is, now that you know what is happening, you can instead spend your time figuring out why.
How failure codes support reliability-centered maintenance
Reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) is defined by the technical standard SAE JA1011, Evaluation Criteria for RCM Processes, and of the seven main questions it poses, we can see that five of them focus on equipment failure:
What is the item supposed to do and its associated performance standards?
In what ways can it fail to provide the required functions?
What are the events that cause each failure?
What happens when each failure occurs?
In what way does each failure matter?
What systematic task can be performed proactively to prevent, or to diminish to a satisfactory degree, the consequences of the failure?
What must be done if a suitable preventive task cannot be found?
Because RCM is all about identifying and containing an asset’s failure modes, anything that supports this is a natural ally. Failure codes allow teams to easily and completely capture failure data, and this in turn empowers them to improve maintenance operations from day to day. That’s why they remain such a powerful tool for RCM-focused maintenance teams.
Mastering failure codes in Fiix
When it comes time to create your problem, cause, and action failure codes in Fiix, you can choose any names you’d like (as long as they’re alphanumeric). But for some extra inspiration, check out the technical standard ISO14224, which was originally developed for the petroleum industry but contains universal suggestions on which codes to create and conventions for naming them.
If you’ve already created failure codes in another CMMS or legacy spreadsheet system, you can save time by importing them into Fiix in .csv format.
You’re a maintenance manager, and you’ve got more on your plate than just keeping the lights on. You’re in charge of keeping a facility running smoothly and safely for your employees, contractors, and visitors—and that means making sure everything is up to date and working correctly.
But how do you get it all done? How do you know when something needs fixing?
Fortunately, there’s an easier way for maintenance managers to keep track of their team’s work orders: a maintenance work order system.
What is a maintenance work order system?
A maintenance work order system is a computerized database of equipment and parts. It’s used to track when maintenance needs to be performed, what work should be done, and where it needs to be performed. Maintenance work orders are also known as PMRs (planned maintenance reports), MOTS (maintenance operations technical standards), EPRs (engineering change proposals), or preventive/corrective action plans.
Do I need a work order system?
If you think your operation is too small to need computerized maintenance management software (CMMS), think again. Everybody has maintenance needs, whether they ignore them or not, and work orders are what get maintenance done. If work orders aren’t planned and executed properly, you might as well give your money away. The secret to cutting maintenance costs is a good work order system, and here’s why you need one:
1. Reduce equipment failures
Whether you manage a large factory or run a community center, you buy insurance. Traditional insurance protects you from unexpected problems but sometimes doesn’t cover the cost of extensive damage. The best kind of insurance to buy is the kind that prevents the problem from happening in the first place. The problem, in your case, is unplanned asset downtime, and the insurance is a work order system.
Work order system software ensures preventive maintenance gets done on schedule, saving the most expensive maintenance issue of all: Downtime. It reduces equipment failures by:
Helping you keep track of maintenance tasks and schedules
Identifying equipment failures
Prioritizing repairs, so repair work is done in a timely manner and with the right parts
Keeping records of equipment failures and their causes can be helpful when it comes to preventing future breakdowns or other problems with the same piece of equipment
2. Extend asset life
Every piece of equipment or infrastructure you own is an asset. Every asset has an annual operating cost, which includes purchase financing or cash outlay spread over its lifespan. Although you don’t see that cost every day, you still pay it and feel it at the end of the year. A work order system extends asset life by helping you:
Conduct preventive maintenance. Regular inspections and service help to prevent expensive repairs, which can extend the life of your assets.
Improve quality control: The data collected through a maintenance work order system gives managers insight into how much time is spent on each asset at each location, helping them identify areas where they could improve efficiency.
3. Save money on parts and supplies
In a CMMS, the work orders are linked automatically to your parts inventory. You save money because it helps:
Reduces the number of parts that are returned unused
Minimizes the amount of time spent on ordering parts
4. Boost maintenance productivity
No doubt about it, maintenance requires an investment. A maintenance work order system can help boost productivity by:
Reducing the time spent on paperwork. Keeping track of all your maintenance tasks, scheduling them, and updating them is very time-consuming. A good maintenance work order system will automate this process and make it easier for you to manage your assets in one place.
Helping to prioritize work. If you need clarification on which asset needs attention first or if any safety issues need immediate attention, then using a CMMS can help identify these things quickly so they don’t get overlooked.
Identify equipment that requires repair or replacement by looking at its history of service requests over time (e.g., this machine broke down last week versus this machine has never broken down before).
5. Improve health, safety and compliance
A maintenance work order system is a critical component of any facility. It’s the single source of truth for all maintenance tasks, providing a clear picture of what needs to be done and when. This makes it easier for managers and employees alike to know their responsibilities, making them more efficient at their jobs—and safer.
A work order system can also help you improve compliance with safety standards by making sure that all necessary inspections are being conducted regularly and on time. This reduces the risk of accidents or other hazards taking place.
A good maintenance work order software can help your organization efficiently manage all your equipment
This is just a short list of the many benefits that can be gained by using a maintenance work order system. It’s important to remember that these are not just theoretical benefits—they’re real, tangible results that will help your organization run better and more efficiently every day.
Maintenance has evolved a lot in the last 50 years. The tools, technology, processes, and people who make up this industry have also changed. As a profession, maintenance is made up of a diverse group of people that don’t just fix things, but who plan, purchase, design, analyze, and optimize. This includes technicians and maintenance managers, but also engineers, planners, and even IT personnel. In world-class companies, maintenance is an integral part of business operations contributing positively to an organization’s overall growth and profitability. But it wasn’t always this way.
In this article, we walk through the evolution of maintenance from a do-as-needed profession to a critical role in every facility, plant, and organization.
The journey to modern maintenance
In the journal of Hazardous Materials, N.S. Arunraj and J Maiti documented how maintenance has changed from World War II to the present day. In the article, it was clear that each generation saw an increase in production demands and needed their equipment to be reliable. The increased production made companies more profitable, and to ensure they continued to bring in revenue, they needed to make sure their equipment was reliable. This focus on reliability led to improvements in their maintenance strategy.
As part of this improvement, the techniques for performing maintenance have significantly changed. In the early days of maintenance, work was mostly reactive—teams fixed breakdowns only when they occurred. In the decades since, maintenance has embraced a proactive approach with the goal of preventing unplanned downtime of any sort before it happens.
To make the shift to world-class maintenance, each generation needed to improve how, when, and what type of maintenance was needed. The first thing to change was adding planned preventative maintenance to the first maintenance generation. This was a good start, but there was little way to predict what equipment would break and when, so a system needed to be created for planning and controlling work.
In the second and third generations, new technology and developments in failure theory helped to put the focus on predictive maintenance. This type of maintenance is part of the same family as preventive maintenance. However, predictive maintenance uses condition-monitoring tools and techniques and asset information to track real-time and historical equipment performance so you can anticipate failure before it happens. Since predictive maintenance aims to give you an ideal window for proactive maintenance tasks, it can help minimize the time equipment is being maintained, the production hours lost to maintenance, and the cost of spare parts and supplies.
These new maintenance practices changed the way maintenance was done. The most dominant of these was reliability centered maintenance, which provides a structure for determining what maintenance activities should be done and when. It works by identifying the functions of the company that are most critical and then seeking to optimize maintenance strategies to minimize system failures and increase equipment reliability and availability. With this maintenance strategy, possible failure modes and their consequences are identified, all while the function of the equipment is considered.
Most recently, the maintenance industry has begun to consider the total cost of asset ownership. Ideas such as evidence based asset management, risk-based maintenance, and total productive maintenance, have contributed to this. There has also been a big push toward adopting new technologies. The gradual adoption of maintenance management software and artificial intelligence have shown to be useful in improving and predicting a facility’s maintenance strategy.
Unfortunately for many companies, the fact is their maintenance is still seen as a necessary evil. For those companies, their maintenance has not stayed in touch with world-class maintenance practices. To progress, one of the first steps is to change the corporate culture so that maintenance is a cooperative partnership that can significantly contribute to profitability and customer satisfaction.
The maintenance department itself will have to up-skill and adopt new practices before the corporate culture changes to view maintenance as the important business function that it is. For the maintenance department, up-skilling will mean new techniques are learned to predict and prevent equipment failures. The new practices will include a more involved relationship with the production and management teams as well as adopting software tools that will facilitate a world-class maintenance practice.
Maintenance involves a lot of moving parts, which means more chances for something to go wrong. And when problems arise, you want to tackle them with as much information as possible. In other words, you want problem-solving to be predictable. Data is a key ingredient in achieving this goal.
We look at 5 ways to use data to solve common maintenance issues and lead your team to success.
Future of analytics and data
This article walks you through what data to use and how to use it. While you can follow along if your data is in spreadsheets or file cabinets, we’re using the Fiix analytics tool to illustrate the process. Fiix analytics is visual and interactive so you can get a clear view of how to drill into your data and find the answers to your biggest questions.
1. How do I make sure the right maintenance is being done at the right time?
The average facility manages 45 work orders a week. With so much to do (and so little time to do it in), you know how important it is to focus your team’s efforts in the right place. So, this question really has three sub-questions—am I doing too much maintenance, not enough maintenance, or the right amount of maintenance on an asset?
The first step to answering these questions is to identify the assets with lots of work orders associated with them. Then, filter these work orders by asset and maintenance type.
First, look for assets with few or no corrective work orders associated with them. This means you’re probably doing PMs too frequently on these assets and can cut the frequency of scheduled maintenance.
Assets with not enough preventive maintenance will have lots of emergency work associated with them. Also, look for assets with lower maintenance costs compared to assets of a similar type as that is often a sign that they aren’t getting enough maintenance. Increase the frequency of PMs on these assets.
The right amount of maintenance shows frequent and corrective work orders associated with assets.
2. How is maintenance affecting the performance of equipment?
To get a picture of how maintenance is impacting equipment performance, start by collecting information on assets with associated downtime. Next, filter those assets into two categories – planned and unplanned downtime. Rank those assets by unplanned downtime. Assets with more unplanned downtime are the ones you want to tackle first as they have the biggest negative impact on your company and the most opportunity for improvement. You can further filter those assets by maintenance costs associated with them. The assets with the most downtime and highest costs are where to begin adjusting your strategy.
The next step is to dive into the notes on the emergency work orders attached to those assets. Find out what the most common problems and causes were, and make changes to address them. For example, has a bearing continually failed because of improper lubrication? A simple change might be to increase the frequency of lubrication and specify the proper amount of lubrication needed in each instance.
Revisit this report to see if your adjustments have made a difference. If unplanned downtime and maintenance costs drop across 30, 60, and 90 days, you now have data to support your decisions and show how they impact production.
3. How can my facility organize our storeroom so parts are easily accessible?
An unorganized storeroom can pose more problems than just being messy. It makes it hard for technicians to access parts when they need them most leading to delays and potential breakdowns.
To tackle this problem head-on, collect data on assets with the most emergency work orders attached to them.
Take note of what parts are associated most with that emergency work and the equipment they’re needed for. Once that has been determined, you can kit those parts together. Parts kitting makes getting parts easier and more accessible when emergency work is triggered.
For this to work in the first place, this data needs to be tracked and updated frequently. Each time a tech reaches for a spare part, that data should be updated. It gives you an accurate sign of which parts are used frequently and how often they are attached to reactive work.
4. Where should I be allocating my maintenance budget?
Figuring out where to spend your maintenance budget can be a headache and can be even harder to justify that spending.
Let’s say that increasing your team’s headcount would help clear some of the facility’s backlogged maintenance. That decision comes down to two factors— do I hire more in-house employees or more contractors? That big budget consideration is hard to justify without proof.
To begin making your case, collect all the information you can about work done in the last quarter to a year. Was it done mostly by internal employees or contractors?
By looking at each category, add up the total spend associated with each. Take into account costs like employee salary and benefits, contractor’s hourly pay, and training. Each has its cost benefits and disadvantages.
Based on those costs, you can make a pretty clear case to your department, based on dollar value, if it’s more cost-effective to hire internal employees or more contractors. Those stats can help justify why spending on additional hires is necessary.
5. What obstacles are our technicians facing?
It’s easy for technicians to get caught up in their workload when things get busy. Completion notes aren’t updated or information is missed on work orders. It may not seem like a big deal the first time, but once it becomes a habit, it can become an obstacle for other technicians.
As a maintenance manager, you can help enforce the importance of having complete information. One of the ways you can tackle this obstacle is by conducting bi-weekly checks to find work orders with missing information or incomplete notes.
Look for trends in those work orders. Was it done by the same technician? Is it the same type of information being missed? Consider looking at the type of maintenance associated with these work orders. Consider having a department-wide info session on the importance and benefit of filling out work order completion notes.
If it’s the same technician, take a look at their logged hours. If they are doing more hours than the average, it might mean they are simply logging too many hours and might be overworked.
Making it a habit to check for these inconsistencies on a regular basis might make a big difference in the performance of your employees and your facility.
Seeing the bigger picture leads to bigger gains
Your facility has lots of moving parts and keeping track of them all manually can be time-consuming. Using an analytics reporting tool provides a visual representation of your facility’s moving parts. In addition, it gives the power back to the maintenance department, allowing them to tackle problems as they arise and lead their team to solution-oriented work culture.
Work orders are the engine of your maintenance operation. They power your team and move work from point A to point B. But there are millions of engines in the world, from rusted duds to high-powered studs. This article is about mastering the maintenance work order so your operation can run as smooth as a luxury sports car.
What is a work order?
A work order is a document that provides all the information about a maintenance task and outlines a process for completing that task. Work orders can include details on who authorized the job, the scope, who it’s assigned to, and what is expected.
Work orders are the engine of your maintenance operation. They power your team and move work from point A to point B.
Work orders are crucial to an organization’s maintenance operation. They help everyone from maintenance managers to technicians organize, assign, prioritize, track, and complete key tasks. When done well, work orders allow you to capture information, share it, and use it to get the work done as efficiently as possible.
Work order vs work request
While a work order and work request sound similar, they have a few key differences. A work request is used by non-maintenance staff to make the maintenance team aware of a task. For example, a machine operator might submit a work request when equipment breaks down. The work request is reviewed by a maintenance manager, who adds extra information, schedules the task, and assigns it to a technician. The work request is now a work order.
Types of work orders
There are five main types of work orders used in CMMS software, including general work orders, preventive maintenance work orders, inspection work orders, emergency work orders, and corrective maintenance work orders. Below are details of each type of work order and when to use them.
General work order
A general work order includes maintenance tasks that do not fall under the category of preventive maintenance, inspection, emergency, or corrective maintenance work orders. General work orders may include tasks like setting up new equipment, taking down equipment no longer in use, or painting.
Preventive maintenance work order
Preventive maintenance (or preventative maintenance) work orders are scheduled routine maintenance that is done on assets to prevent costly equipment failure and unplanned machine downtime. Preventive maintenance falls between reactive maintenance (or run-to-failure ) and predictive maintenance. Preventive maintenance work orders include resource requirements, instructions, checklists, and notes for each task. They are also put on a schedule to ensure the maintenance task is performed at a specific time interval.
Inspection work order
An inspection work order indicates when a maintenance technician needs to audit or inspect the condition of an asset. This is usually based on a predetermined period of time, similar to preventive maintenance work orders. During an inspection, a maintenance technician may identify a problem and then create a new work order to correct that problem.
Emergency work order
An emergency work order is created when an unplanned asset breakdown occurs and needs to be repaired right away. An emergency work order records and tracks reactive maintenance that is performed. The maintenance technician can add details in the work order about why the asset resulted in the unexpected breakdown, what maintenance work was done on it, and information on how to prevent the breakdown from happening again.
Corrective maintenance work orders
A corrective maintenance work order is created when a maintenance technician discovers issues while conducting preventive maintenance, inspection, general, or emergency work order tasks. Corrective maintenance is performed to identify, isolate, and solve the issue so that the equipment, machine, or system can be restored to its correct condition. Unlike an emergency work order, a corrective maintenance work order is planned and scheduled because the failure was identified in time. A corrective maintenance work order may consist of repairing, restoring, or replacing equipment or equipment parts.
What is the work order lifecycle?
Every maintenance work order has a lifecycle with three main phases – creation, completion, and recording. These phases can be broken down into six steps, including task identification, requesting a work order, scheduling the work order, assigning and completing the work order, documenting and closing the work order, and analyzing the work order to help improve the process for next time. Understanding each step and having a solid work order process ensures tasks don’t get stuck in one phase and turn into backlog.
How to write a good work order in six steps
Step #1: The task is identified
Maintenance tasks fall into two groups, planned maintenance and unplanned maintenance. Planned maintenance encompasses all the jobs you know of ahead of time, like routine inspections, and unplanned maintenance includes all the tasks you can’t foresee, like an unexpected breakdown.
Step #2: The maintenance request is created
The details of the job are put together and submitted to the maintenance team for further action. For example, when a machine breaks down, an operator creates a work request and submits it to maintenance. If a task is planned, a work order is created and triggered at the proper time.
Step #3: The work order is prioritized and scheduled
Some jobs are more time-sensitive than others. A burnt-out light bulb doesn’t need to be fixed immediately, but a broken conveyor belt might. That’s why you need to prioritize every work order that hits your desk.
After prioritizing, it’s time to schedule. Work orders can be scheduled based on a set deadline, planned maintenance triggers, or dedicated blocks of time. Setting a deadline keeps everyone accountable and informed so nothing falls through the cracks.
Step #4: The work is assigned and completed
It’s time to turn those words on a page into action. The work order is assigned to a technician, who completes the task. This can be a five-minute check of equipment, or it can be a complex repair job that takes several days.
Step #5: The work order is closed and documented
Once all the terms of the work order are completed, it can be closed. Managers may need to sign off on the work order for compliance requirements. Once closed, the work order is filed away. A properly organized work order log is crucial for building asset histories, reviewing past solutions, preparing for audits, and more.
Step #6: The work order is analyzed and/or reworked
Closed work orders contain valuable information. They can provide insight into your processes and systems that can be used to fine-tune your operation. Having a work order log also allows technicians to quickly spot any missed steps or alternate solutions if an issue flares up again.
What should be in a work order?
A good work order will have 16 different sections to provide the necessary details for maintenance workers to effectively understand and complete the task at hand. The 16 components are listed below. Work orders are like anything else your facility produces – they must be made well and free of defects. If one part of the process is off, it can affect the entire line.
Asset: What piece of equipment needs work?
Description of issue: What’s the problem? What did you hear, see, smell, or feel at the time of failure or leading up to it?
Scope of work: What work is required to get the job done? What skills are needed?
Parts and tools required: Are there any parts that need to be replaced or special tools that need to be used?
Health and safety notes: What safety procedures and equipment are needed? Have there been any accidents or near-misses while working on a similar issue or asset?
Date requested: When was the work order created and submitted?
Requester name/department/contact: Who created and submitted the work order?
Expected completion date: When should this work order be completed?
Actual completion date: When was the work order completed and closed?
Expected hours of work: How many hours should it take to complete the work order?
Actual hours of work: How many hours did it take to complete the work order?
Task checklist: Is there a step-by-step guide to completing the required work?
Priority: How important is this work order? High, medium, or low?
Assigned to: Who will be doing the work? Is more than one person required? Is an outside contractor required?
Associated documents: Are there resources that can help the work order be completed more efficiently, like SOPs, manuals, diagrams, videos, asset history, purchase orders, or images?
Notes: Are there any other observations that might be helpful in completing the work order or reviewing the work order after it closes, such as the frequency of an issue, troubleshooting techniques, or the solution reached?
5 best practices for managing a work order
Just like company assets, work orders also need standard operating procedures (SOPs) to give you a baseline for creating, reviewing, and optimizing maintenance tasks. Five best practices for improving the management of your work orders are to establish your maintenance goals, KPIs, and maintenance metrics, define roles and responsibilities, decide on work order frequency, build work order triggers, and conduct work order post-mortems.
#1: Decide on goals and measurements for your work orders
Before setting up your work orders, it’s necessary to know what information you want from them. You can follow a four-step framework for this. First, start by identifying your organization’s maintenance goals. Second, define your maintenance KPIs so you know what needs to be quantified. Third, identify your team’s metrics and what they should be measuring. Fourth, use this information to guide your maintenance strategy.
#2: Define work order roles and responsibilities
Create clearly defined roles and responsibilities for each part of the work order process. Outline who can create, assign, prioritize, complete, and review work orders. This will help you avoid duplicate or unauthorized work and miscommunication.
#3: Decide on work order frequency
The frequency of when you should perform maintenance work will vary depending on the equipment and the operation it is performing. You can follow the manufacturer guidelines to help determine scheduled frequency and inspection so that assets do not fail unexpectedly. Creating a preventive maintenance schedule will help protect against costly reactive maintenance.
#4: Build work orders triggers
Determine the best way to trigger work orders automatically within your operational processes. This includes triggers that create the initial work request as well as follow-ups for failed PMs, compliance documentation, or extra work that needs to be done on the asset. There are five common types of maintenance triggers include breakdown, time-based, event-based, usage-based, and condition-based. It’s important to understand when and how to use each one to achieve maximum efficiency and reliability at your facility.
#5: Conduct work order post-mortems
Big projects and big problems deserve hindsight. Create a plan to find what went right and what went wrong on these major jobs. Then apply your learnings to the work order process.
5 benefits of using work order management software
Overseeing all the maintenance tasks across your company is definitely a challenge. Regardless of best efforts in trying to keep up with manual tasks, there will always be things that fall threw the cracks. Work order management software benefits maintenance technicians and facility managers by bringing overall efficiencies into operations. Five benefits of using work orders to manage maintenance tasks include having a centralized system where all the work order details can be found, no more need for paperwork, better budgeting and planning, easy access for maintenance workers, and regulatory compliance.
#1: You get one centralized system for all maintenance tasks
Work order management software allows you to create and track maintenance tasks all in one place. That means only one source to reference versus having to look through multiple systems to find the necessary information. With work order management software, maintenance teams can handle multiple tasks at a time, like assigning labor hours, estimating and monitoring labor and parts costs, and keeping track of safety procedures and downtime. With all work order information in one place, it becomes easier to schedule and prioritize orders according to need and urgency.
#2: You reduce your paperwork
Work order management software is able to record information automatically. As soon as you enter data into the work order, it gets saved by the system. This eliminates the need to manually enter data into paper records. In addition, maintenance technicians have 24/7 access to all the necessary work order information on their mobile devices or computers. Work order management software helps you save time by eliminating the need to sift through piles of files or clipboards in search of specific information. The system provides real-time tracking and record keeping throughout the work order process.
#3: You’re able to budget and plan more accurately
Work order management software provides a treasure trove of real-time data that enables you to accurately measure maintenance performance. Work orders keep track of every part of the process, including what work needed to be done, who did it, what did it cost, and how long did it take to complete. Having a work order management system is vital for keeping your records accurate and up-to-date. Using this information, you’re able to plan and budget better in order to reduce or eliminate stoppages and interruptions.
#4: You have easy access to information whenever you need it
Work order management software enables maintenance technicians to access work order information at their fingertips. Whether by mobile, laptop, or desktop computer, the information goes where they go. That means they have work order access no matter where they are conducting maintenance, such as in the factory or in the field.
#5: Easy to maintain regulatory compliance
Work order management software is required to comply with both national and international regulatory standards. All the work is already incorporated into the software, so this reduces the amount of time and paperwork it takes your maintenance team to prepare for an audit. Instead of getting stressed and spending hours in preparation, all you need to do is generate reports of previous work orders done through the system. In the long run, compliance becomes easy to trace and reduces exposure to noncompliance penalties.
Learn how to build work orders easier with software
Work order software vs pen and paper
Work orders have been managed with pen and paper since the day they were invented. Written work orders are cost-effective and familiar. Paper is a tool everyone is comfortable using. It takes next to no training, the upfront costs are fairly low, and there’s a paper trail for when you need to check past work.
However, this system has some serious flaws. Paper files are easily misfiled, lost or damaged. They are cumbersome and take time to find, retrieve, and sort. Inaccurate information is more likely to make its way onto a work order as details are often recorded after an incident. Response time to work requests is also slower. These factors, combined, make work less efficient and could cost you a lot of money down the line.
Some jobs are more time-sensitive than others. A burnt-out light bulb doesn’t need to be fixed immediately, but a broken conveyor belt might. That’s why you need to prioritize every work order that hits your desk.
Work order software vs whiteboards
Whiteboards are another old standby for maintenance departments. The cost of materials doesn’t stretch the budget too far and it’s certainly easy to have all work orders available to view and update in one, central place.
Like pen and paper, whiteboards have some severe limitations. Keeping records is a huge headache and it’s extremely difficult to extract information from any records you actually manage to get. This makes it almost impossible to create asset histories, prepare for audits, and build work order reports. The work order management process also gets bogged down as operators and technicians need to go to a central location to submit or view work requests.
Work order software vs excel spreadsheets
Excel spreadsheets are a step up from pen and paper and whiteboards. It makes records digital, so files are less likely to be damaged or lost. It’s also easier to search for information and create reports using this information.
But while spreadsheets raise the bar slightly, there are some factors that make it a shaky foundation for managing maintenance work orders. Some spreadsheets are locked into single computers, which makes it difficult to see up-to-date information on a work order. Even if they are cloud-based, spreadsheets don’t have the ability to automatically trigger work orders, which makes preventive maintenance extremely difficult to achieve. Inputting data and creating reports require long periods at a computer and know-how. There’s also a limited ability to track the progress of work orders, which leaves you a step behind.
Work order software vs CMMS software
Work order software is a stand-alone solution to creating and managing work orders. It ensures maintenance departments can assign work efficiently so it can been completed in a timely manner. Work order software also creates comprehensive work histories for each asset, and offers real-time updates on completed work and scheduled work. Many vendors also offer a mobile solution through an app, making it easier to document work correctly in real-time and make informed decisions on the spot.
A computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) goes beyond basic work order management, and also includes a scheduled maintenance planner, asset profiles and management, and inventory management.
Finally, one of the biggest advantages of computerized maintenance management systems is their use of mobile and cloud technology. This kind of maintenance work order software allows everyone in maintenance to create, track, complete, and analyze tasks in real-time, from anywhere—whether that’s at the scene of a breakdown or a beach in Hawaii. Technicians can bring work orders, asset histories, documents, and images wherever they go. They are also notified of new work orders as soon as they are submitted or triggered. Reports mine the data in maintenance work orders for cost, efficiency, and other metrics. For those outside of maintenance, submitting a work request through a CMMS can give them a greater sense of ownership over that work. They can track the status of their requests and it eliminates duplicate work orders. This is a key way to grow TPM at your facility and reduces the need to get updates or clarification on the task.
While CMMS software is the way of the future, it comes with costlier upfront prices, requires exceptional training and culture to make the system successful, and often necessitates more advanced maintenance techniques. However, the long-term benefits of the system more than make up for any initial shortcomings. To learn more, read our blog detailing the top 20 benefits of a CMMS.
The bottom line
Work orders are a pillar of great maintenance. When managed properly, they give your team the stability and structure it needs to be efficient. A well-built maintenance work order and work order process makes it easier to establish a preventive maintenance program and react to unplanned maintenance. Roles are defined, workflows are smoother, tasks are tracked, and information is well-documented. Choosing the right tools and systems to manage work orders is the crucial final piece of the puzzle. When it all comes together, your operation can master the fundamentals of maintenance and look for new ways to grow and succeed.
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