Work order

A work order is a record of one repair or maintenance job, created so that the job can be assigned to someone, tracked and closed. It says what needs doing, where, on which piece of equipment, by when, and who is doing it. Office buildings, factories, hotels, hospitals and apartment societies all run their maintenance this way. The software that holds the work orders is often called a computerised maintenance management system, or CMMS.

Here is how it works in general. A work order is opened in one of three ways. Someone reports a problem, such as a leaking pipe or a lift that stops between floors. Or a schedule creates it, such as the monthly service of a generator. Or a predictive maintenance system opens it, because sensor readings show that a machine is likely to fail. The work order is given a priority and assigned, either to the organisation's own technician or to an outside contractor. The technician does the job and records what was done, the parts used and the time taken, often with a photo. A supervisor, or the person who reported the problem, confirms the work, and the work order is closed. If a contractor did the job, the closed work order is the basis for paying them.

Why keep a record of each job? Without one, a reported problem can be forgotten, or two technicians can be sent to the same job. Nobody knows what a machine has cost to maintain. Over months, the closed work orders become the history of each piece of equipment. They show which lift breaks down most often, and when a pump should be replaced instead of repaired.

Take, for example, a resident who reports a broken tap in a society management app. The complaint becomes a job for the society's plumber, and the resident can see when it is closed.

Consider a restaurant chain with 300 outlets. Through a facilities management marketplace, each repair is sent as a work order to a local contractor, tracked, and paid once the outlet's manager approves the work.

Say an electrician runs a small business. Field service software for trades turns each customer's call into a job with an address, a time and a quote, and takes the payment when the job is closed.

How is a work order different from an IT ticket? A ticket in IT service management records a problem with software or a computer, such as a password reset. A work order records a job on something physical, which needs a person on site. Both follow the same steps: open, assign, do and close. A work order is also not a purchase order, which is a request to buy goods. A repair may need both: a work order for the job and a purchase order for the spare part.