Work Orders form the basis of any Maintenance Job in CMMS. Companies use CMMS work orders to put up a formal request for maintenance work that needs to be performed. The maintenance teams are allowed to record valuable information regarding the tasks with the help of work orders. In CMMS various types of Work orders can be generated. Work order is generated either for any general maintenance services or in emergency periods, during the asset breakdown. In case of preventive maintenance, jobs are scheduled either monthly or yearly basis or on certain duration. Also the jobs are scheduled on meter reading basis to create automatic work order to notify technicians to start with. Using CMMS an organization can schedule maintenance work orders in a better way using workflow automation.

5 major types of work orders in CMMS software

• General work orders- Some of the maintenance tasks which are not included in preventive maintenance, emergency, inspection or corrective maintenance tasks are known as general work orders. Setting up new equipment, dismantling of old equipment or any service oriented tasks can be defined as general work orders.
• Inspection work order- For an inspection work order it requires a maintenance technician to audit or perform inspection of an asset based on a set of parameters which are pre- determined. Inspections are performed in a time-based manner. During on-going inspection, a problem may be determined by a maintenance technician who would then create a new work order to correct that problem.
• Preventive maintenance work order – It is a routine maintenance task which is scheduled earlier. Preventive maintenance can be performed on a single asset or on a group of assets. The key feature of preventive maintenance is that it maintains the equipment in its existing form and prevents any failure or deterioration. Preventive work order defines checklists, instructions, resource needs and notes for each maintenance task. Scheduling the maintenance job for any asset in CMMS is very easy to do. Admin team can schedule either time based or meter reading based, depending on the asset. Like for the vehicle type of assets which need maintenance after certain kilometers of journey and CMMS creates a work order based on the scheduler and notify the assigned technicians. 
• Emergency work order- This type of work order is generated when there is an occurrence of unscheduled breakdowns and the need of repairing the asset right away arises. Maintenance manager needs to perform reactive work which was not planned before by using emergency work orders. After completion of the work, the maintenance technician provides information in the work order regarding what exactly happened, what is the cause of the breakdown, what steps were taken to fix the breakdown and what safety measures are to be followed to prevent occurrence of such breakdown in future.  IoT sensors help in conditional maintenance. Based on the threshold value defined, it generates work orders automatically and notify technicians. For example, if any equipment works on a certain temperature or humidity but reaches the threshold limit or in case of water leakage, the sensors detect and send signals to CMMS to create a work order.
• Corrective maintenance work order- While completing a preventive maintenance when a maintenance technician discovers a problem and generates another work order. These work orders are known as corrective maintenance. This type of work order is performed to determine, isolate and rectify a problem. So that the system, machine or equipment restores to its initial healthy condition. Corrective maintenance work orders are scheduled and planned from beforehand unlike emergency work orders as failures were determined in time. The process includes repair, replacement or restoration of the equipment.

5 advantages of using work order management software like CMMS

It is challenging to oversee every maintenance task across your organization. There is always a chance of things falling through the cracks. No matter how much effort to give to manually keep up the tasks. Maintenance technicians and facility managers get benefit out of the maintenance management software like CMMS as it brings overall efficiencies into operations. The 5 advantages of using such work order management software like CMMS are as follows:

• A centralized system for all the maintenance tasks
• Perform budget and plan accurately
• Reduces extra paperwork or manual work using CMMS work orders
• Maintain regulatory compliance easily using CMMS work orders
• Access information regarding work orders at fingertip.

Business organizations of different industries, like manufacturing, building & property, foods & beverages, education, hospital or others  can reduce the costs and improve the efficiencies of the assets by implementing efficient work order management software like DreamzCMMS. There will also be enhanced compliance activities and a safer working environment will be created with CMMS work orders.