Overview of Work Order Process

Work Orders are the “heart” of Maintenance Connection, allowing your organization to identify and monitor problems identified with equipment, ensure equipment is properly maintained, and schedule corrective action as needed.

There are three general types of work orders: Corrective, Preventive, and Predictive.

• Corrective Work Orders: The most common work orders are work orders created to remedy a problem identified with a piece of equipment maintained by your organization.

  There are two ways that corrective work orders are created in the system:

  • Service Requester: Service requests can be entered directly into the system in the Service Requester by users of the system who have authorization to do so.

  • Create Work Order: Work orders can also be created within the Maintenance, Repair, and Operations Application for any asset in the system. The work order might be created in response to a service request made through paper, email, or phone by individuals without access to Maintenance Connection. Alternatively, an administrator might create the work order due to his or her own observation of the asset, or due to scheduling considerations. For example, an administrator might observe open time on the schedule and create the work order for a piece of equipment not yet “scheduled” for maintenance.

• Preventive Maintenance: Rather than wait for problems to occur with key assets in your organization, Preventive Maintenance schedules can be created based on the passage of designated periods of time or usage of the equipment. Work Orders originating from this process are automatically generated by the system.

• Predictive Maintenance: In organizations that perform Predictive Maintenance on their assets, analysis is performed to determine when equipments require maintenance. The results of this analysis are used to schedule maintenance and create required work orders.

Work orders are comprised of five different components, regardless of how the work order was created. Each work order specifies the asset for which the maintenance should be performed, along with any required specifications for that asset, and a description of the problem or failure that has occurred. Work orders vary in their complexity; some work orders specify all five components, others only one or two. The components can be described as follows:

• Tasks: A list of tasks to be performed to complete the work order. A simple work order might only list a single task, such as “check battery on smoke alarm”.

  In contrast, if the work order is the result of a planned preventive maintenance schedule, it likely includes a more complex procedure designating a set of tasks to be performed. Tasks can refer to specifications that must be evaluated, such as air cooling capacity or torque.

• Labor: The employee or contractor that is assigned to complete the work order. Work orders can be assigned to a single labor record or to multiple labor records. The individual or company assigned to perform the maintenance does not need to be a user of Maintenance Connection. Assignments can be made via hard copy or email. Work order assignments can also specify target hours for each labor record assigned.

• Material / Parts: The inventory items required to complete the work order. In some installations, inventory is maintained within Maintenance Connection. Larger organizations often interface inventory usage with an external third party system.

• Tools: Additional tools required to complete the work order such as gloves, hammer, or a power drill, and the location where they can be found.

• Other Costs: Additional costs not categorized as parts or tools, such as the rental of a piece of equipment.

Maintenance Connection provides powerful features to support the assignment of work orders to skilled individuals. Work order assignment takes numerous factors into consideration, including scheduling constraints, department or shop workloads, and the skills and crafts of available labor resources.

The majority of work orders are assigned by a System Administrator based on available resources, skills needed, and other scheduling considerations. The administrator can search for technicians based on location, work loads, or characteristics of the labor resource such as employment status, department, and other assignments.

If the work order has estimated labor designated (crafts/skills required to perform the work specified), the administrator is provided with a list of individuals with the requisite skills for optimum assignment. In some circumstances, the asset being maintained designates a specific labor record (individual) to be assigned to any work orders generated. In these cases, Maintenance Connection automatically creates the assignment to the specified labor resource.

For further information on the assignment process, see Assign Work Orders.