A work order is an important production document to ensure that manufacturing businesses are able to complete their projects on time and within budget. Work orders are relied on by companies in various industries, from construction, repairs and maintenance, to manufacturing, for organizing and streamlining end-to-end delivery requirements.
It helps to clearly outline specific tasks, materials, and project details for effective team collaboration and seamless execution on a daily basis. Therefore, it's important that your business works with a good work order system for tackling process optimization and production capacity utilization.
Let's understand the types of work orders, their purpose, format and benefits for everyday business operations enhancement and satisfaction of customers.
What Is a Work Order?
A work order is a digital or paper-based document that serves as a clear instruction with all details about the project and related maintenance work. They include information like:
- The scope of the work.
- The person who authorized the task.
- The person to whom the work is assigned.
- Additional details like special instructions and expected results.
For any small manufacturer, work orders are an essential part of their maintenance operations. It enables maintenance engineers or technicians to organize, prioritize, and complete their assigned tasks.
In the next section, let's see how you execute a work order through effective work order management.
What Is Work Order Management?
Work order management is the process of supervising and processing work orders to ensure orders are fulfilled as expected. It also comprises a systematic approach to solve critical maintenance issues on priority.
Work order management is also responsible to ensure that all manufacturing equipment is running optimally to minimize equipment downtime.
In the traditional mode, companies issued a work order through physical or printed documents. In the digital age, this practice is a thing of the past. Most organizations manage their work orders by using work order management software. This software comprises all the tools required to plan, schedule, and handle all work orders efficiently.
A work order management software enables maintenance managers to:
- Create online work orders to save time and energy.
- Assign the work order to the right person.
- Set the due date and expense of the assigned work order.
Next, let's discuss how the work order management process works.
Work Order Management Process
The work order process in any company starts with the maintenance manager's acceptance of the work order. The work order is then assigned to the right technician through the following six steps:
- Identifying the task: This includes details of what needs to be part of the maintenance task to resolve the given problem.
- Creating the work order: This step includes creating the request form that authorizes the maintenance task.
- Approving the work order: It refers to the process of the maintenance manager approving the need for the work order.
- Prioritizing the assignment: It refers to determining the work order's urgency based on available resources and backlogs.
- Executing the work order: This step refers to assigning the approved work order to the right technician or operator.
- Documenting the work result: It means recording the work results in an organized and timely manner.
Once the work order is completed, the next step is to close the open work order. Additionally, information from the work order management is used for improving insights into the entire process and resolving any bottlenecks.
Types of Work Orders
Organizations can issue different types of work orders depending on the type of work in the project. Here are the most common types of work orders:
General work order
Also referred to as a standard work order, this work order is any non-critical maintenance work that does not demand immediate attention or priority. Examples of a general work order include:
- Setting up new manufacturing equipment.
- Removing old equipment.
- Painting a facility or changing light bulbs.
Preventive maintenance work order
A preventive maintenance work order is used to schedule the following maintenance work. This type of maintenance is necessary to keep equipment running with optimal efficiency. It is also helpful for minimizing machine downtime and extending the life of the asset.
The preventive maintenance work order enables maintenance engineers to:
- Schedule their routine maintenance work on different assets and equipment.
- Identify the required materials, spare parts, and labor needed to perform the given task.
Inspection work order
This work order is issued whenever the organization wants to inspect its installed assets and machinery. This is a recurring type of maintenance work similar to preventive maintenance.
An inspection work order provides a checklist of inspection points that the assigned technician must check when performing the task. If the assigned technician detects any problem, a new work order is issued to resolve the problem. Your maintenance strategy typically determines the frequency of inspections.
Emergency work order
As the name suggests, an emergency work order is issued whenever a critical asset or equipment breaks down and requires immediate intervention. Also known as reactive maintenance, an emergency work order is used to track and record unscheduled maintenance tasks.
This type of high-priority work order provides maintenance operators with the following work-related details:
- What caused the malfunction or breakdown?
- What actions are required to fix the problem?
- What action can be taken to prevent the problem from recurring?
Corrective maintenance work order
A corrective maintenance work order is issued whenever any maintenance engineer detects a potential issue or risk. This type of work order is different from an emergency work order. Corrective maintenance is performed to fix an issue before it becomes a significant problem (wherein emergency maintenance would be required).
A corrective maintenance work order is the direct result of performing preventive maintenance and inspections frequently.
What Should Be Included in a Work Order?
A work order should include the following information:
- Name of the asset or the equipment that needs maintenance work.
- Issue or the description of the problem being faced.
- Scope of the work that is needed to be done.
- Required tools or parts that need to be replaced or devices that must be used.
- Date of creation of the work order.
- Requester name who created and issued the work order.
- Expected completion date indicating when the work order should be completed.
- Actual completion date indicating when the work order is completed and closed.
- Expected work hours required to complete the job.
- Actual hours of work taken to complete the job.
Work Order vs. Work Request
What is the difference between a work order and a work request? Also known as a service request, a work request is a request for maintenance work submitted by any department employee or non-maintenance resource. On the other hand, a work order is authorization from the maintenance department to conduct the maintenance work.
How Does Work Order Improve Maintenance?
Be it corrective or preventive maintenance; a work order enables managers to keep track of maintenance-related work and the use of resources (including labor and spare parts). Here are some of the maintenance-related key performance indicators (KPIs) that can be used to monitor and improve the performance of the maintenance personnel:
Schedule Compliance
Organizations can quickly measure their schedule compliance KPIs using work order management software. With this KPI, maintenance managers can view all the scheduled work daily. They can also calculate the percentage of scheduled work completed for any period.
MRO Expenditure
Maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) expenditure is another crucial metric for maintenance managers to track the costs of replenishing materials and spare parts used in maintenance work. MRO costs are an efficient way of determining the frequency of inevitable failures - or if selected assets are failing more regularly. This is useful for companies to plan their preventive maintenance strategy.
Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF)
The collected data from multiple work orders are also helpful in calculating the mean time between failures (MTBF). This is the average time between failures for the same asset. A low MTBF means your maintenance team spends more time performing reactive maintenance for the given asset. This means that assets should be included in the preventive maintenance plan.
How to Write a Work Order?
Here are the main steps to create a work order from scratch:
Identify the maintenance task
Maintenance work can either be planned or unplanned. For both these cases, the first step is to identify the problem to be resolved through the issued work order.
Create the work request
Once the task has been identified, the next step is to create the work request with details of the job. You can create a work request using the right work order management tool. You must create this request to account for any planned maintenance. On the other hand, for any machine breakdown, create the work order immediately upon notification.
Prioritize and schedule the work order
Some maintenance jobs require more immediate attention than other jobs. Based on the importance of the maintenance work, prioritize and schedule your work order. Work orders can be scheduled according to a deadline or for a dedicated schedule. A defined work order schedule is important to maintain accountability and to stick to deadlines.
Assign and complete the work order
Once the work order is approved, the next step is to assign it to the right personnel with the required skills to complete the job. The assigned person must complete the job on time based on the schedule. Depending on the complexity, they could complete the job in a few minutes or take several days.
Close and document the work order
Maintenance managers must approve and sign off the completed work order for compliance requirements. This step is also necessary once the work order has been completed as desired. Additionally, accurate documentation is essential to maintain work order records for future references and audits.
You can use predefined templates with a work order format as an alternative to these steps. Let's see an example of a work order template in the following section.
Upgrade to TranZact for Automated Work Order Management
With TranZact, business owners can streamline their maintenance work and reduce machine downtime. TranZact provides an automated platform with a work order management system, to organize your work orders and improve the productivity of your maintenance and production teams. Additionally, its cloud-based functionality enables your operational managers to track the real-time status of all their work orders and accelerate production cycles to increase revenue.
FAQs on Work Order
1. Work order vs. purchase order: what is the difference?
Work orders are different from purchase orders. A work order is used to authorize and assign maintenance-related and production tasks, while a purchase order is a formal purchase document used to approve purchases from an external vendor.
2. Sales order vs. Work order: what is the difference?
Work orders are different from sales orders in the way that, while a work order authorizes and assigns internal maintenance-related tasks, a sales order is a formal document sent by any company to its customer before delivering any purchased product.
3. Service order vs. Work order: what is the difference?
A work order is typically issued for in-house asset maintenance or as part of a customer order requirement. A service order is issued to the customer for billing of any utility usage.
4. Is work order a contract?
A work order can be a contract when it is issued to an external party unilaterally as part of an existing contract.
5. Is a work order an invoice?
No, a work order assigns in-house maintenance work or internal production related tasks, while an invoice lists the various services provided to the customer along with their charges.
