Work orders are an important part of the maintenance processes in manufacturing companies. They ensure that maintenance work is carried out properly and can also serve as a [...]
Work orders are an important part of the maintenance processes in manufacturing companies. They ensure that maintenance work is carried out properly and can also serve as a basis for planning maintenance work. An important consideration when creating work orders is the use of categories to better organize the orders and make the work more efficient. This article presents some useful categories for work orders.
Asset or machine
One category that is useful for work orders is to specify the plant or machine involved. This helps the maintenance team quickly identify the work order and procure the necessary resources and materials. Also, being able to categorize maintenance work based on the machine can be beneficial later when analyzing maintenance history.
Type of maintenance
Another important category in work orders is the type of maintenance. Here, a distinction can be made between preventive maintenance, corrective maintenance, or replacement of spare parts. By categorizing maintenance types, the maintenance team can better plan what resources are needed and how much time needs to be scheduled for maintenance.
Here would be a few examples:
1. preventive maintenance: planned maintenance performed at regular intervals to maintain equipment performance and prevent breakdowns.
2. corrective maintenance: immediate repair work performed to correct a problem that has led to a failure.
3. preventive maintenance: maintenance work performed to prevent potential problems before they can lead to failures.
4. conditional maintenance: maintenance work performed based on specific conditions, such as operating hours.
5. post-failure maintenance: maintenance work performed to repair or replace a damaged part.
6. safety and environmental maintenance: maintenance work performed to ensure the safety and environmental compatibility of equipment.
7. planned maintenance: maintenance work that is scheduled to service a facility during a planned break in operations or during another specified time.
8. emergency maintenance: maintenance that must be performed unexpectedly to return a facility to service as soon as possible.
Urgency
It may not be possible to process all work orders at the same time. In this case, specifying the urgency is helpful to prioritize which jobs need to be processed first. There are various ways of specifying the urgency, for example with a numerical scale.
Person responsible
Assigning a responsible person for a work order is also useful. This way, everyone on the maintenance team knows who is responsible for completing the work order and who can answer questions about it, if necessary.
Work order status
It can happen that work orders cannot be completed immediately and therefore have a longer processing time. In this case, it can be helpful to mark the status of the work order, for example, as “in process,” “waiting for material,” or “completed.” This enables the maintenance team to keep track of the current status of maintenance work and, if necessary, take action to avoid delays.
Summary
In this article, we have looked at what categories are useful in work orders and how to use them to make the maintenance process more efficient.
A structured approach to work orders can help resolve issues more quickly and keep maintenance teams’ work more organized. We have listed several categories that should be included in work orders, such as a description of the problem, a list of necessary materials and tools, and an indication of the priority of the work order.
Implementation can be done in a number of ways. For example, one can use an [Excel spreadsheet](https://www.microsoft.com/de-de/microsoft-365/excel) or use maintenance software such as our [Elara software](https://getelara.de/). With the Elara software, many aspects are already preset, which makes creating work orders even easier. The complicated assignments to machines and spare parts are implemented automatically. Also the types of maintenance can be customized and can be used directly, for example to calculate the OEE.
Maintenance software also offers the possibility of tracking work progress in real time and performing analyses to optimize maintenance processes. This allows bottlenecks to be identified and eliminated at an early stage, resulting in even greater efficiency in the maintenance process.
In summary, good structuring of work orders is an important part of maintenance processes. Using maintenance software like the Elara app can help to create work orders even easier and make the maintenance process more efficient. Especially for manufacturing companies that do not yet use maintenance software, the introduction of Elara can be a great advantage.
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