Work Order Management
Digital Or A Printable Work Order Template: What's Best For You?
What is a work order template?
A work order template is a customizable work order form that you use to organize maintenance job details necessary for executing a work order.
A well-designed work order template includes
- Asset name and identification number (ID)
- Task description
- Scope of work
- Task priority and checklist
- Task request and completion date
- Task requestor name and contact
- Assigned technician name and contact
- Tools and parts necessary for the task
- Expected number of working hours
Filled-in work order templates help contractors, service technicians, or third-party companies understand your requirements and expectations.
Moreover, templates streamline how you track costs, materials, labor, contractors’ timesheets, and more.
Project managers and contractors must affix their signatures for work orders to be legally binding agreements.
Work orders are the backbone of efficient maintenance management.
They contain specific maintenance work details, instructions, and completion dates — all key to formally initiating maintenance or repair work.
Maintenance technicians generally fill in service request forms (or work request forms) on computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) to generate work orders.
Creating work orders from scratch every time is time-consuming. This article shows you how to make work order templates to get more done quickly.
Types of maintenance work order templates
Depending on the nature of maintenance work, work order forms and templates can be of the following:
- Maintenance work order is specifically for maintenance orders. It includes maintenance work details, total expenditures, contract information, materials and labor costs, starting date, and approval signature.
- Service work order is suitable for capturing details of services contractors offer. It ensures accurate record-keeping by adding service dates, tracking numbers, required parts, total charges, and taxes.
- Automotive work order records auto service job details, including vehicle information, parts, and labor costs.
- A stop work order asks a contractor to shut down or suspend a project or job. It states the reasons for the suspension, project details, and the timeframe. You can also use this template to cancel a part of a project.
- IT work order is for requesting IT services. This form includes IT tasks, task request date, job details, and contact information of the requestor and contractor.
- Graphic design work order requests design services with detailed job information.
- Landscaping work order lays out job details for landscape installations, hardscape services, and garden design.
- A school maintenance work order is a form that educational institutions use to schedule preventive maintenance or planned maintenance activities.
Now, let’s look at why you need these work order forms.
Why should you use work order templates?
Maintenance managers use work order forms to schedule work on time, streamline maintenance paperwork, stay compliant, and control labor and expense.
Using these forms also helps them create consistency, build accountability, and keep work details transparent.
- Creates consistency. Work order forms play a crucial role in building a sense of routine in your maintenance team. Templates ease how they report the hours they work, supplies they use, maintenance tasks they perform, and costs. In addition, pre-defined templates help collect consistent details from different departments and avoid confusion or miscommunication. This data collection consistency is vital to making data-driven decisions and achieving total productive maintenance.
- Hold technicians accountable. Maintenance work orders can slip through the cracks when you don’t record who did what and when. Work order forms provide maintenance managers complete visibility into who’s accountable for what and if they did their job on time. In addition, when deferred maintenance happens, you can use these forms to find out the root causes of why a task is on the back burner.
- Minimize paper trails. Spending hours looking for a maintenance task performed last year signifies that you need work order software. Work order form templates let you streamline work order history, maintenance schedule, and equipment repair processes with organized paper trails.
When should you use work order templates?
You should use work order forms whenever you request the initiation of a new maintenance task.
Consider using an appropriate template to include necessary job details, set expectations, and record maintenance activities performed.
Also, consider educating everyone about these forms, so everyone submits a work order request before starting a project.
Steps to create an effective work order template
Whether creating a work order form from scratch or optimizing an existing one, follow these steps.
- Identify the maintenance job. The first step is understanding whether the task involves a routine or emergency maintenance. Maintenance managers generally plan and schedule routine maintenance jobs or inspections ahead of time. On the contrary, emergency repairs involve immediate fault assessment and resolution.
- Create a work order. Depending on the nature of the job, you gather the necessary details and send the document to your maintenance team. You can schedule planned jobs ahead of time but must be proactive while dealing with breakdown maintenance tasks.
- Schedule the work order. Now, it’s time to prioritize work orders and schedule them. For example, you may need to fix a broken conveyor belt immediately for operations to resume. Situations like this often demand you put other jobs in the backlog. Consider adding a deadline for each job to keep the team informed and accountable.
- Assign the work order. This is when you assign the task to a technician with relevant skills.
- Record the work order details. Once the assigned technicians complete the job, you can close the work order. Now, you’ll file the work order after affixing your signature. Consider organizing all work orders for ease of building asset history and streamlining audits.
- Analyze the work order. Diving deep into work order details and equipment maintenance log is critical to finding insights for improving operations. Work order logs also help you identify missed maintenance work in the future.
Now, consider what you should include in a work order form.
- The maintenance task requester should provide details like the date of request, job details, work order type, the best time to service, and request urgency.
- The maintenance technician or team must fill out details such as the assigned technician's name, description of the task performed, inventory usage, time spent on maintenance, and costs.
Free work order template you can steal!
Why paper-based work order systems don’t work anymore
Paper or spreadsheet-based work order management systems are ideal for small facilities.
However, these systems may fall flat when you want to streamline machine maintenance for hundreds of assets. Here’s why:
Information loss
Over time, paper-based work order requests can be lost or buried under stacks of paper.
A digital CMMS solution prevents this information loss by organizing and maintaining work order documents in a single place.
Limited visibility
Maintenance requesters, technicians, and maintenance managers can’t access a paper document simultaneously.
They can check the document together with a digital work order management solution.
A digital work order request system lets you schedule or track maintenance tasks while updating the maintenance team about incoming or pending jobs.
Moreover, you can provide real-time updates that reach everyone involved on time.
Poor record keeping
Maintenance managers often analyze previous work order documents to understand asset failure patterns and create preventive maintenance schedules.
That’s no easy job when they have to go through thousands of documents.
Digital work order systems streamline this process by storing detailed maintenance history and automating pattern analysis.
These digital records show compliance with operation and maintenance (O&M) manual recommendations, which is crucial to passing audits and inspections.
Work order management with a CMMS software
Cloud-based CMMS software is the go-to solution for streamlining maintenance requests and boosting productivity.
CMMS tools like Facilio help you automate work order creation, analyze maintenance history, and gain insights into equipment and facilities.
Moreover, you can use these insights to reduce downtime, costs, and work order resolution time.
