Field Service

Inventory of parts and materials are stocked to handle unexpected situations that could pose a risk to normal operations or to our third party service activities. The unexpected situations that require immediate part numbers and rapid allocation and execution of service, also poses a risk to equipment, processes, employees and facilities etc. Real-time Field Service Dispatch Software is required to handle these situations.

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5. Project Work Orders

This service covers larger tasks such as equipment installation, facility upgrades, and conversions as well as multiple element migrations and upgrades. These types of jobs can take days or weeks to complete and may require the services of 1 or more technicians.

Work Order vs Service Ticket: What's the Difference?

One of the common confusions are when an organisation is responsible for the maintenance of the system and also for providing customer service to customers reporting problems.

Service Ticket is often seen externally by the service customer in order to submit a request for service. Typically the Service Ticket includes the customer’s request for service, i.e. the problem to be solved by the technician. The Work Order view of a Service Ticket provides an internal view of the work order document that authorizes the technician to perform the actual work necessary to solve the customer’s problem.

For many field service organizations, the service ticket is the first indicator that service work is needed. But often it is not until the work order is created that the organization shifts into a more organized mode for planning the work. Typically, the service ticket is used to capture customer reported problems, and the work order is used to capture information such as completion status (how the work was done), parts required, and time to complete service work.

Work orders generally start as a service ticket; but whereas you write a service ticket on a customer, work orders are written internally to track the work, the materials, and the hours expended to bill accordingly. So, the workflow for a work order would also encompass procedures for excellent customer service and cost accounting.

The Work Order Creation Process: Step by Step

So you want to make sure you’re following best practices when it comes to developing a workflow for creating work orders? The following step by step guide outlines the processes that need to be in place to ensure that work orders are properly authorized and have the correct information and resources prior to starting work.

Step 1 — Identify the Need

The need for repair or maintenance may be identified at any point in the lifecycle of the asset whether that be during a planned preventive maintenance, from a fault report received from a technician, an inspection finding or from a customer service request. The need for work is first documented before any work is done.

Step 2 — Create the Work Order

A work order would typically include details such as Asset Information, Task to be performed, Priority of Task, Parts required to perform the task and any Safety Note etc. Online Booking Software enables staff in front of customers to create a work order from a service request.

Step 3 — Assign and Schedule

Work orders are assigned to the appropriate technician or group of technicians based on skill set, availability and proximity. Assigning work orders to the correct technician in a timely manner is critical to the success of most organizations. For field service organizations, the time to complete jobs and the availability of required parts are driving factors. A dedicated  Job Scheduling Software can make this process much easier.

Step 4 — Execute the Work

After completing the repair, the technician simply completes the repair and marks the work order as complete. Work orders are viewed and completed on a smartphone or tablet using a Mobile Maintenance App. Data is entered for the correct amount of labor time, repair images are captured and the work order status is updated anywhere, anytime. No more tedious paperwork to complete at a desk and then pass to others.

Step 5 — Complete and Close

After work has been done, the technician documents every piece of completed work. This includes the parts installed, time actually taken to complete the job, as well as any other relevant details. The work order is then reviewed and closed by a supervisor before the details get recorded in the asset’s history.

Work Order Tracking Methods

In tracking work orders, the maintenance manager may gain differing levels of awareness of the activities of the maintenance department. There are three basic methods for tracking work orders.

Paper-Based Tracking

Wage and time work orders are not a new concept. In fact, paperwork wage and time work orders existed before time and attendance systems. The traditional work order offered little to the end user, as they were made of paper which meant they could be lost, contain illegible handwriting, or be missing important information. You did not receive real-time status updates on active work orders. There was no comprehensive search feature to locate archived work orders. And to add insult to injury, you often had to complete an incomplete and inaccurate paperwork work order.

Spreadsheet-Based Tracking

Spreadsheets have some advantages, but they’re fundamentally reactive and manual. Manually updating a spreadsheet on a periodic basis isn’t enough to provide timely notifications to all the right stakeholders as the assets under management grow. And by the time the assets get big enough, managing that spreadsheet is a full time job in itself. Furthermore, spreadsheets create “data silos”, whereby each department/team has their own version of the truth, which may or may not be up to date.

Digital Work Order Systems (CMMS/EAM)

The gold standard for a well run maintenance program is to track all work orders through one program like DreamzCMMS. Utilize a single system to track and manage all active (open), upcoming, and completed work orders as the heart of your maintenance management activities. Automate scheduling and send out notifications and work orders on time, like clock work. Capture every detail of labor and parts used, automatically updating work order records and eliminating manual reentry. Monitor metrics to boost efficiency.

For organisations quickly scaling up from managing work orders with spreadsheets, implementing a digital work order system may be the single biggest operational improvement they can make.

Work Order Management: The Bigger Picture

Work Order Management is the process of creating, assigning, acting upon and analyzing work orders in a methodical and repeatable fashion. By managing work orders effectively, organizations can transform their maintenance functions from cost centres into engines for performance by delivering planned and responsive maintenance.

Effective work order management connects several operational disciplines:

• Inventory and Parts Management — knowing what parts are on hand before a work order is assigned prevents delays at execution time
• Technician Scheduling — matching the right skill sets to the right jobs at the right time
• Asset Performance Monitoring — using work order history to spot deteriorating assets before they fail
• Financial Reporting — rolling up labour and materials costs from work orders into maintenance cost per asset
• Compliance Management — maintaining a secure, searchable archive of all maintenance activities for audit purposes

For field service teams specifically, work order management also intersects with customer SLA management — ensuring jobs are completed within the timeframes promised. Explore how to optimise this in our guide on Field Service Dispatch Best Practices.

The Role of Work Order Management Software

As assets increase in value and the complexity of the maintenance operations increases, manual management of assets is no longer sustainable. Management of assets using spreadsheets causes bottlenecks (eg who has locked the file and can’t update it) and management using paper causes gaps (eg where is the piece of paper and who had it last). Often the biggest obstacle to better asset management is the siloed nature of procurement, maintenance and other teams, all trying to manage the same asset in their own way.

DreamzCMMS for Work Order Management. The Work Order Management Software for all phases of the work order life cycle. Work order creation and distribution, Work Order Tracking and Status. Automated Alerts and Notification. Reporting and Analytics. Scheduling. Asset Life Cycle Tracking and Maintenance History.

• Automated preventive maintenance scheduling
• Real-time work order status tracking
• Mobile access for field technicians
• Asset service history and lifecycle tracking
• Labour and parts cost reporting
• Audit-ready inspection and compliance records
• Integration with dispatch and scheduling tools

Efficiency, accountability, and savings are realized in the immediate maintenance phase and continue to increase over time.

Conclusion: Why Work Orders Are the Foundation of Maintenance Excellence

Maintaining equipment can be a complex task and there are many different methods available for doing the job correctly; it is common for technicians to try a variety of different approaches before determining what the best maintenance tactic actually is. There are so many variables involved in this type of work, including the type of material that was used to create the original component and the specific design

The work order is often misunderstood to be nothing more than a piece of paper, perhaps a form. In reality, the work order plays a significant role within an organization by linking the need to service an asset with the actual service delivered and capturing cost, accountability and performance information.

Exploring what is a work order, establishing a structured work order process and automating and optimising with a digital work order system. Organisations that take work orders seriously can achieve lower maintenance costs, higher asset availability and improved compliance.

Whether using work orders for preventive maintenance of a fleet of service vehicles, tracking inspections due for hospital departments, or attempting to respond quickly to problems in a manufacturing environment, the same organizational imperatives of organization, transparency, and ongoing improvement apply.See first hand how a modern work order system can help your maintenance team be more effective. Book a Free Demo with DreamzCMMS.