Blog

Key Takeaways: Legionella bacteria can spread through cooling tower water droplets and cause serious illness. Proper cooling tower water treatment controls scale, corrosion, and bacterial growth. Vibration and temperature readings can reveal equipment problems before failure. With WorkTrek, teams can schedule cooling tower inspections and complete checklists. If there's one thing that should make anyone responsible for cooling towers pay attention to maintenance, it's the risk of Legionella.  Over the past two summers, New York has dealt with dangerous Legionnaires' disease outbreaks, putting cooling towers in the spotlight once again.  Legionella isn't the only reason to keep up with maintenance. Proper care also helps cooling towers operate efficiently, use less energy, and last longer.  But how do you ensure the cooling towers you're responsible for get the attention they need?  You need a good old maintenance checklist. Read on to get one, along with some practical tips and tools to help you keep your cooling towers in good shape and bacteria-free. Cooling Tower Maintenance Checklist  Not all cooling towers are the same, so their maintenance needs won't be exactly the same either.  The type of tower (open-circuit, closed-circuit, or dry), its operating conditions, and the environment around it all play a part.  For example, a tower surrounded by trees may need more frequent checks for leaves and other debris.  Your starting point should always be the manufacturer's operation and maintenance (O&M) manual.  From there, use relevant guidance, including the CDC's recommendations for Legionella prevention, and adapt the maintenance schedule to your equipment, water management plan, and local requirements.  We reviewed guidance from the CDC and EMSD, along with maintenance recommendations from manufacturers such as BAC, SPX Cooling Technologies, and EVAPCO, to put together this baseline checklist.  Use it as a starting point, not a one-size-fits-all schedule, and always check your manufacturer's manual before carrying out cooling tower maintenance. Daily Checks Daily checks will help you spot changes in operating conditions and catch water treatment issues early. Check for unusual noise, vibration, leaks, or visible biological growth Check system readings, operating status, and alarms. Check disinfectant residuals and confirm they remain within control limits. Check automated water treatment and chemical feed systems. Record water treatment readings and flag results outside control limits. Weekly Tasks Use weekly inspections to check for buildup, obstructions, and early signs of mechanical or water quality problems. Inspect accessible components for debris, scale, corrosion, and biological growth. Check fans, motors, and drive components for unusual noise or vibration. Check basin water level and remove visible debris. Inspect air inlets, screens, and louvers for obstructions. Flush low-flow pipe runs and dead legs. Review water treatment results and investigate abnormal readings. Monthly Tasks Monthly maintenance covers key water distribution and basin components, drive systems, and routine water quality monitoring. Clean basin strainers. Check basin water level, makeup valve, and float assembly. Check the blowdown (bleed-off) valve. Inspect water distribution and spray patterns. Inspect and clean air inlet louvers and fan screens. Inspect fan belts for wear and tension (belt-driven units). Check gearbox oil level and look for leaks (geared units). Test and record water chemistry, including pH and conductivity, at the frequency required by the water management plan. Test for Legionella at the frequency required by local regulations and the water management plan. Quarterly Tasks Quarterly checks focus on components that need periodic inspection, lubrication, or more thorough cleaning. Lubricate fan-shaft bearings. Inspect drift eliminators for damage and buildup. Inspect fan blades for cracks, damage, or abnormal vibration. Inspect driveshafts, couplings, and bearing lubrication lines (where equipped). Clean and flush the basin or water collection pan. Inspect water-level controller probes and remove scale buildup (where equipped). Review microbiological monitoring results and complete scheduled Legionella testing. Semi-Annual and Annual Tasks At this frequency, do a deeper cleaning, detailed inspections, and preventive work that goes beyond routine checks. Inspect belt tension and condition (belt-driven units). Inspect structural fasteners and mechanical equipment bolts. Inspect fan blades, hubs, fan cylinders, driveshafts, and couplings for wear or damage. Inspect metal surfaces and repair damaged protective coatings. Inspect and lubricate motors. Inspect gearboxes and replace lubricant when due (geared units). Clean and disinfect the cooling tower at least annually, or more frequently when required. Inspect and clean fill surfaces (open cooling towers) or heat-transfer coils (closed-circuit coolers) as needed. Review maintenance records, water treatment results, and corrective actions. Seasonal Start-Up and Shutdown Before starting or taking a tower out of service, check the equipment and follow the relevant water management and seasonal maintenance procedures. Before start-up Inspect the tower and connected components for damage and debris. Clean and disinfect the system as required before commissioning or restarting. Check the basin, drains, strainers, and makeup water valves. Inspect fans, motors, drives, and safety guards. Check water treatment controls, sensors, alarms, and safety interlocks. Check water distribution and spray patterns after start-up. Check for leaks, unusual noise, and vibration. Record inspection results and outstanding repairs. Before shutdown Follow the water management plan’s shutdown procedure. Drain and clean the basin when required. Drain the heat-transfer coil when necessary to prevent freezing (closed-circuit coolers). Protect pipes, pumps, and other components against freezing. Lubricate and protect components as required. Record shutdown activities and maintenance needed before the next start-up. How to Make Sure Your Team Actually Uses the Checklist Having a checklist ready doesn't mean much if your team doesn't actually use it.  Unfortunately, there are plenty of reasons why that might happen.  Maybe the checklist is buried in a binder, technicians forget to record readings, or those less frequent tasks keep getting pushed aside.  Whatever the reason, the goal is to make the checklist easy to follow, easy to fill out, and hard to forget about.  Assign someone to each task, schedule preventative checklists and inspections, and keep a record of what was done and when.  Our CMMS WorkTrek will help you automate much of that job.  Instead of relying on paper checklists, you can create a digital one, customize the questions and sections to fit your cooling tower, and attach it to a recurring preventive maintenance work order linked to that tower.  Source: WorkTrek Set up daily, weekly, monthly, or annual checklists and assign them to the right technicians. When the date comes, they will get a reminder so the checklist won't get lost in a binder somewhere.  Technicians can complete the checklist in the mobile app while they're on-site.  If they flag an issue, WorkTrek can automatically create a follow-up work order so it doesn't get lost among other tasks. Source: WorkTrek You can also use NFC tag check-ins to confirm that technicians visited the tower and access searchable inspection records whenever you need to look back at previous maintenance or prepare for an audit. Cooling Tower Maintenance Best Practices A thorough checklist will give you a routine to follow, but keeping a cooling tower in good shape takes a little more than that.  You also need to work with water treatment specialists, control health and safety risks, and pay attention to how the tower performs over time.  Work With a Water Treatment Specialist Just because your cooling tower looks fine on the outside doesn't mean everything is fine with the water inside it.  Dissolved minerals can build up and form scale, water can corrode metal parts, and bacteria, including Legionella, as well as algae and other microorganisms can grow if water conditions aren't properly controlled.  And just like that, you're looking at operational, financial, and health risks.  That's why, for proper cooling tower maintenance, it is crucial to work with a water treatment specialist.  John Ramirez, Regional Manager of Engineering Services at Action Property Management, makes this point when talking about the role of maintenance teams and their vendors: “I know the maintenance techs that are on site, they're doing as much as they can, but they don't control the chemicals. They have to get with their vendors and figure out what the proper mixture is for each tower. Each tower has its own mixture, it has its own way of controlling what grows and what doesn't grow.” The “mixture” he is referring to is a water treatment program that includes scale inhibitors, corrosion inhibitors, biocides, and pH adjusters, so figuring out the right combination and dosage is definitely a job for a specialist.  A qualified water treatment provider will therefore test your water, recommend the right treatment program, and adjust it when needed.  It's also worth agreeing on how often the water should be tested, how you'll receive the results, and who needs to act if the water chemistry is outside the recommended range. Build a Legionella Water Management Plan Legionella is one of the biggest reasons cooling tower maintenance needs to be taken seriously.  The bacteria can grow in cooling towers because they often have ideal temperature ranges for Legionella growth 20°-50°C (68°-122°F).  Bacteria can then spread through tiny water droplets in the air, potentially causing Legionnaires' disease, a serious type of pneumonia.  According to the CDC, about one in ten people who get sick with the disease die from complications.  Unfortunately, there have been many cases of Legionnaires’ outbreaks.  In 2017, Disneyland shut down two cooling towers following an outbreak in Anaheim. More recently, a 2025 outbreak in Central Harlem sickened 114 people and killed seven. Source: Google News Investigators matched Legionella found in two cooling towers to samples from patients.  To prevent Legionella from growing and disease from spreading, cooling tower owners are required to have a special Legionella water management plan.  The purpose of a Legionella WMP is to identify Legionella risk and establish steps to monitor water conditions and respond to risks in time.  ASHRAE Standard 188 sets out minimum requirements for managing Legionella risks in building water systems, while ASHRAE Guideline 12 offers additional guidance, including for cooling towers.  Below are the seven steps that a Legionella water treatment plan has to have (by CDC, based on ASHRAE Standard 188 and ASHRAE Guideline 12): Source: CDC Make sure to build one for your cooling tower and follow it closely. Protect Technicians During Inspections and Cleaning A cooling tower isn't just a big box of water.  It has fans, motors, pipes, and other components that technicians need to inspect and maintain, sometimes on rooftops or elevated platforms.  In other words, they work around moving machinery, surrounded by treatment chemicals, water aerosols, and fall hazards.  One case shows just how serious these risks can be.  A 65-year-old cooling tower engineer suffered multiple life-threatening injuries after falling around 30 feet when a neglected railing gave way, according to the law firm that represented him.  Source: BWG Law It's a reminder that safety equipment needs maintenance, too.  Inspect ladders, platforms, and railings regularly, repair defects promptly, and provide safe access and fall protection for rooftop work.  Before servicing fans or motors, technicians should follow lockout/tagout procedures to isolate hazardous energy.  They also need task-appropriate PPE, including respiratory protection when there's a risk of exposure to contaminated aerosols.  Cleaning and disinfection need care, too.  Disinfection often comes before physical cleaning to help reduce biological hazards before deposits and biofilm are disturbed.  Technicians should follow the manufacturer's instructions and the site's water management plan rather than improvise chemical concentrations or mix products.  To help them follow these procedures, include relevant hazards, PPE requirements, and safety checklists in the work order.  Source: WorkTrek A CMMS can make these instructions available on technicians' phones and keep completed safety checks with the maintenance records. Track Performance Data, Instead of Completed Tasks Only A maintenance checklist tells you what was done, but cooling tower performance readings can help you spot a problem that needs attention before the next scheduled inspection.  Here are four readings worth tracking: VIBRATIONCan reveal developing problems with fan motors, bearings, and gearboxesFAN MOTOR AMPERAGEUnexpected changes can point to electrical or mechanical issuesAPPROACH TEMPERATUREA rising temperature difference can indicate that the tower isn't transferring heat as effectively as beforeCONDUCTIVITYHelps track dissolved minerals in the water and manage blowdown A real-world example of how beneficial it is to track this data comes from Aux Sable, a natural gas processing facility that monitored cooling tower fan motor vibration over three years.  Readings rose from 0.07 to 0.19 inches per second, approaching the alarm threshold of 0.20.  Further analysis identified a bearing defect, allowing the facility to repair the motor during a planned shutdown instead of risking an unexpected failure.  The repair cost less than $5,000, compared with a $20,000 quote for a replacement motor.  That's the benefit of tracking performance data.  Rather than sticking to the same maintenance intervals regardless of equipment condition, your team can use the readings to decide when something needs a closer look or when maintenance should happen sooner.  So yes, a fixed schedule and a good maintenance checklist give you a routine, but performance data should decide when that routine needs to change. Conclusion  A cooling tower checklist is a good place to start, but it's not the whole maintenance plan.  You still need to keep water quality under control, manage Legionella risks, and make sure inspections don't get forgotten or left undocumented.  And when performance readings start changing, your team needs to know what to do with that information.  Start with the checklist in this article, compare it with your manufacturer's O&M manual, and adjust it to fit your cooling tower.  Then turn the tasks into recurring work orders so they don't just sit on paper waiting to be done.

An hour of downtime in large automotive plants costs $2.3 million. Most facilities lose less than that, but unplanned downtime is expensive for almost every industrial business. It also happens often, and for most maintenance teams, it is not decreasing. CMMS systems like WorkTrek help maintenance teams track and reduce downtime, but it's important to understand how widespread the problem is first. These statistics show how often unplanned downtime happens, what it costs, and how maintenance teams are responding. Major Manufacturers Average 25 Downtime Incidents per Facility Each Month To start, we'll look at Siemens' 2024 report, The True Cost of Downtime. Siemens collected data from 181 online interviews with maintenance, engineering, and IT professionals at large industrial organizations around the world. The researchers wanted to examine how often production stops unexpectedly. They found that, on average, each facility experiences 25 downtime incidents a month, as shown in the chart below. Illustration: WorkTrek / Data: Siemens As we can see, this is a 41% drop from 2019, when the average was 42 incidents. The report explains that the number has dropped due to the rise of predictive maintenance (PdM), which uses equipment data to detect early signs of failure. Manufacturers can now predict many mechanical failures because these technologies have become common. So, while the report shows that the cost of each hour of downtime rose in most sectors, fewer incidents mean total losses grow more slowly. For 79% of Maintenance Teams, Unplanned Downtime Held Steady or Increased Over the Past Year Two years later, we can see a slightly different trend. MaintainX surveyed 2,234 maintenance and operations leaders in the U.S. and Canada for its State of Industrial Maintenance 2026 report. Among their findings, they looked at how unplanned downtime changed over the past year. The results are shown below. Illustration: WorkTrek / Data: MaintainX As you can see, downtime has not improved for the vast majority, with 45% reporting no change and 34% an increase. Only 21% experienced less unplanned downtime. When looking at the causes, respondents named asset strain and workforce constraints. This means equipment is under more stress while fewer skilled technicians are available to maintain it. It's worth looking at your own downtime records from the past year to see whether stoppages are becoming less frequent. If they are not, staffing and equipment condition are good places to start. Unplanned Downtime Costs the Typical Industrial Business $124,669 per Hour This data comes from ABB's Value of Reliability report, which surveyed 3,215 plant maintenance leaders around the world in 2023. Among them, 49% were senior managers, alongside C-level executives, directors, owners, and partners. When asked about the cost of downtime, they reported almost $125,000 per hour for a typical business. Illustration: WorkTrek / Data: ABB The number varied across sectors, which the report attributes to differences in regulation and in the cost of lost production and raw materials. These three industries saw the highest cost: Energy and power: $179,055 Plastics and rubber: $178,941 Oil and gas: $144,452 If you’re in one of these sectors, it's a good idea to calculate cost based on lost output, idle wages, and wasted materials. That figure will show how much each prevented stoppage saves your business. An Hour of Downtime in a Large Automotive Plant Costs $2.3 Million Coming back to the Siemens report, it's worth looking at their downtime cost figures as well. As we mentioned, costs increased between 2019 and 2023. For automotive manufacturers, they lost $2.3 million for each hour a large plant was not productive. Illustration: WorkTrek / Data: Siemens In other words, that's over $600 lost every second that production lines are not running. Over the five years the researchers examined, the cost of an hour's downtime in this sector rose by 113%. The report breaks down why these costs have increased so much, looking at how downtime leads to several costs at once: Lost revenue from goods not produced Wages for staff who cannot work during downtime Emergency repairs and parts Penalty payments to customers This is important because each of these costs grows with every hour the equipment isn’t running. Reducing the length of each stoppage lowers these losses, and preventing the stoppage lowers them further. 52% of Manufacturers Say Downtime Hurts Their Ability to Meet Production Targets or Shipping Deadlines If we look beyond cost, we can see how downtime affects production schedules and customer orders. One such insight comes from L2L's research report, The Real Impact of Manufacturing Downtime. Their 2025 survey, run with a third-party research firm, asked over 600 U.S. manufacturing leaders about the impact of downtime. For over half of them, the biggest impact is on production targets and shipping deadlines, as shown below. Illustration: WorkTrek / Data: L2L The report also found that facilities lose an average of 30 hours of production to downtime each month, and 17 of those hours are unplanned. This means most of this downtime is not caused by scheduled repairs or planned inspections, but directly affects production that has already been scheduled. Planned downtime can be arranged around delivery dates, but unplanned stops cannot. When a line stops without warning, orders are delayed, and customers notice. Reducing unplanned stops helps you meet production targets and deliver orders on time. 72% of Manufacturing Teams Say Undocumented Fixes Contribute to Downtime One cause of this widespread problem is described in the same L2L report. The researchers asked manufacturing leaders what they think contributes to unplanned downtime, and the majority named undocumented work as a major cause. Illustration: WorkTrek / Data: L2L By undocumented fixes and adjustments, we mean repairs and machine changes that nobody records. For example, a technician might reset a sensor or tighten a belt and return to work without writing anything down. These activities also cause what is known as hidden factories, meaning work and lost time that never appear in official reports. As a result, the downtime a facility tracks is lower than the real figure. Looking at your own operations, it's worth asking whether every repair, adjustment, and reset is recorded, including the short ones. Check whether technicians can log a fix quickly during a shift, and whether anyone reviews those records for repeated problems. 93% of Organizations Are Taking Action to Improve Uptime, but Results Are Mixed Of course, the same manufacturing leaders are working to prevent downtime. If we look at the L2L findings, the overwhelming majority are taking action to improve uptime, meaning the time equipment is available for production. The chart below shows how many are taking action, and how many have seen results. Illustration: WorkTrek / Data: L2L Some of the activities they are investing in are: Training and skills initiatives Continuous improvement Asset and maintenance management Unfortunately, half of the same respondents also report that their downtime management hasn't improved in the last 12 months, despite these efforts. That being said, 46% saw improvements over the same period. Out of this group, 64% said stronger maintenance protocols, such as clear inspection schedules and repair procedures, were the main reason their downtime decreased. Improved training, better inventory tracking, and greater visibility into operations also helped reduce their downtime. 51% of Equipment Managers Don't Have a Well-Defined Maintenance Process While a strong maintenance process is key to reducing downtime, not every organization has one. This was a finding from Cheqroom's 2025 State of Enterprise Asset Management report, which surveyed 200 professionals who manage or check out physical assets. Out of these, more than half believe they don't need a well-defined maintenance process or have yet to develop one, as the data below shows. Illustration: WorkTrek / Data: Cheqroom More specifically, 28% want to develop a better process, while 23% believe they don't need a formal process. Having a structured way to maintain equipment is necessary to prevent downtime, but the report states most organizations rely on informal practices nobody has reviewed closely. Those that had well-defined processes for maintenance and other areas were more likely to rate their overall systems as extremely effective. This means it's worth checking processes for gaps, such as equipment without an inspection schedule or repairs with no written procedure. 52% of Equipment Managers Say Equipment Availability Is Extremely Critical to Their Job The same report highlights the importance of equipment being readily available. When asked how critical it is that this equipment is available and working, respondents answered as shown below. Illustration: WorkTrek / Data: Cheqroom This data should come as no surprise, since 85% rated availability as very or extremely critical. Their daily work depends on these assets. When equipment stops working unexpectedly, the work planned around it is delayed, and other teams have to wait. As one respondent put it in the Cheqroom report: Production deadlines get postponed which then dominos down the line affecting everything from production times, to finishing times, and even to the customer receiving it. This chain of delays the respondent describes is important to consider. Even a minor part of a production line can stop the whole line when it fails, so maintenance needs to be planned and completed on schedule. So, it's a good idea to identify the assets operations depend on most and check that each has a maintenance plan. 38% of Teams Are Reducing Unplanned Downtime Through Automation or New Technology Technology is a big part of how maintenance teams reduce downtime. Sensors, software, and automated systems can detect problems earlier and reduce manual work. In fact, the MaintainX report found that many leaders plan to invest in new technology or automation over the next year to reduce downtime. The chart below shows how many teams are using this approach to reduce unplanned downtime. Illustration: WorkTrek / Data: MaintainX But it's worth pointing out that investing in new technology is not enough to increase uptime. The report points out that the best results come from execution maturity, not adoption alone. Execution maturity describes how well a team uses its tools in daily work. In practice, this means combining modern tools with strong basics, such as well-trained technicians and consistently scheduled planned work. 30% of Companies Say a CMMS Helped Reduce Downtime Among the technologies teams use to reduce downtime, a CMMS is one of the most common. This is software that schedules maintenance and records every repair in one central system. UpKeep's 2025 State of Maintenance Report asked employees of mostly small and mid-sized businesses about the benefits of a CMMS. Respondents, including maintenance managers, technicians, supervisors, and facilities managers, named these three benefits most often. Illustration: WorkTrek / Data: UpKeep As you can see, almost a third reported less unplanned downtime, and it's not hard to see why. Consider a CMMS like WorkTrek. WorkTrek helps manufacturers schedule preventive maintenance, log every fix in a work order in one place, including from the mobile app shown below. Source: WorkTrek Its preventive maintenance scheduling creates work orders automatically, so inspections happen before equipment fails. Each work order also records who fixed what and when, so no repair goes undocumented. This provides the documentation and visibility that UpKeep's respondents valued most. With a CMMS, teams can plan maintenance around the assets that fail most often, instead of reacting to each breakdown. Conclusion The data in this article shows that unplanned downtime is frequent, expensive, and not decreasing for most teams. But it also shows that teams with clear processes and complete records see improvement. The main takeaway is that reducing downtime starts with knowing where and why it happens. A good next step is to review your own maintenance records for the gaps described above. Every improvement you make lowers the chance of the next unplanned stop.

Choosing work order software for a manufacturing facility can get confusing pretty quickly.  Mainly because most work order software covers the same basics, such as creating and assigning work orders, scheduling jobs, tracking labor and parts, and keeping a record of completed work.  They all have some sort of work request form and a calendar to schedule work.  However, there are some nuances that distinguish them and make them more or less appropriate for a manufacturing facility's needs.  With that in mind, here are five work order software options to consider. WorkTrek Our own CMMS, WorkTrek, keeps work order management pretty straightforward.  You get all the features you would expect from a work order system, but they are organized in a dashboard that is easy to learn and use.  You can also manage work orders from the mobile app, which is useful when you are on the shop floor rather than sitting at a computer.  As you can see below, there is quite a lot you can add to a WorkTrek work order. Source: WorkTrek You can link it to an asset, set the priority and assignee, schedule the work, and track labor, parts, materials, expenses, documents, photos, and signatures.  You can also add checklists, safety information, and work history, while serial-numbered and disassembled parts give you more detailed tracking when you need it.  Most work order software lets you record many of the same details. What stands out more is how WorkTrek lets you get to the work order in the first place.  A work order can start as a regular maintenance request, but it can also come from a preventive maintenance schedule or an inspection.  You can even turn a work log entry into a work order.  For example, a technician can record an issue in a work log, and you can use that information to create a work order. Source: WorkTrek The asset and description carry over automatically, so you don’t have to enter the same information again.  You can then add anything else you need, such as the priority, assigned personnel, labor and parts, due date, or additional instructions.  That can be particularly useful when your technicians record problems as they find them and someone else handles the actual work-order planning.  It is also worth mentioning that in WorkTrek, you can easily redirect a work order to another technician if the original technician/contractor is not available, without having to enter all the information again.  Source: WorkTrek WorkTrek also lets you create one work order for multiple asset instances or even an entire production line.  Instead of splitting related work into several work orders, you can keep the tasks, labor, and parts together under one job. Source: WorkTrek Basically, you can customize work orders to your needs, and that is what our clients appreciate most.  Ashley M. Stadelmaier, Production Planning and Procurement Specialist at Cygnus Manufacturing Company, confirms:  “One of the things we love about WorkTrek is that it is fully customizable, so it fits perfectly into our operations and meets all our needs… WorkTrek is intuitive and easy to use.” When it comes to cost, WorkTrek has three pricing plans, starting at $29 per user per month.  If you are mainly looking for straightforward work order and asset management, Starter covers the basics.  If you need more maintenance and inventory capabilities, Professional adds those tools, while Enterprise gives you more room to adapt the software to your existing processes.  Of course, these are just some of the features WorkTrek offers.  If you want to see how it would fit into your manufacturing facility, you can try it for free and explore our software firsthand. FMX FMX is another work order software that covers the usual work order basics and brings requests, scheduling, technician assignment, mobile work, inventory, and reporting into one system.  One of the most useful parts is its calendar.  You can create a maintenance request or planned maintenance task directly from the calendar, and supervisors can drag and drop work to adjust assignments and schedules.  Source: FMX This can be helpful when you manage several technicians and need to see what is coming up, who is handling each job, and where you may need to adjust the workload. Source: FMX Work orders can also come from several other places.  You can create them manually, or FMX can generate them from inspections, scheduled preventive maintenance, or external integrations. So, like in WorkTrek, you are not limited to creating every work order manually.  Once a technician gets the job, the workflow is also fairly familiar to WorkTrek’s.  They can open the work order from their phone, record labor hours and parts used, add photos, and complete the work from the mobile app.  FMX can also automatically update on-hand inventory when parts are used on a work order.  Another practical feature is interactive mapping. You can see open work on a map, which can help when technicians need to handle jobs across a larger facility or multiple locations. Source: FMX User feedback is generally positive about the software's ease of use and customization.  Source: Software Advice  But there are also some specific issues to keep in mind.  The same reviewer reported glitches when using Schedule Requests with automatically generated work orders.  According to the review, the generated work order can have a blank description, and selecting more than one location in a schedule request may prevent a work order from being generated.  That is worth considering if you plan to rely heavily on automated work order creation from scheduled requests.  FMX does not publish standard pricing for its plans. You need to contact the company for a quote, and there is also a one-time implementation fee.  Additional fees may apply for in-person implementation and other services. OxMaint OxMaint takes a fairly structured approach to work orders.  Its 9-step workflow takes you from basic information and safety requirements through tasks, parts, labor, attachments, costs, and notes before you review and submit the work order. Source: OxMaint  İt also has mobile apps for iOS and Android, so technicians can create, view, and manage work orders from the field.  But the more interesting part is what OxMaint can do to create and trigger work orders.  Its Synapse AI Assistant can generate a work order from a description of the maintenance need and suggest the task breakdown, required parts, safety procedures, labor time, and estimated costs.  For urgent repairs, Quick WO lets you create and assign a work order with only the essential information and fill in the rest later. Source: OxMaint  You can also link work orders dırectly to planned shutdown periods.  This is a useful detail for manufacturing because planned downtime can give maintenance teams a window to work on equipment without interrupting production unexpectedly. Source: OxMaint  For manufacturing, OxMaint also supports cycle-based preventive maintenance, so you can trigger work based on runtime, parts produced, strokes, or spindle hours.  Its predictive maintenance tools can use sensor data to detect anomalies and automatically create work orders, while work order data can feed into downtime and OEE tracking. Source: OxMaint When it comes to user feedback, there is one thing to keep in mind.  This software has ratings in mobile app stores and publishes customer testimonials, but it has limited independent feedback on software-review platforms.  Capterra and Software Advice currently do not have a substantial collection of user reviews, making it harder to get a clear picture of how people use the software in real-world manufacturing environments.  How much does OxMaint cost?  İt has four plans: Lite is free and allows up to three work orders per month, Pro costs $19/user/month, Agentic costs $49/user/month, and Enterprise uses custom pricing.  The main difference between Pro and Agentic is the addition of AI-powered maintenance capabilities in the Agentic plan. iFactory iFactory AI divides the work order management process into four steps:  Source: iFactory AI The first step covers operator requests, preventive maintenance triggers, sensor alerts, or manual entry, with asset information automatically added to the work order.  The assignment step is where iFactory puts more emphasis on AI. Its Smart Assignment Engine can match a work order to a technician based on skills, certifications, workload, shift schedule, availability, and proximity.  Source: iFactory AI It can either assign the job automatically or provide ranked recommendations for a supervisor to approve.  Once the work is assigned, technicians can manage it from the mobile app, including task checklists, photos and videos, time and parts tracking, barcode or QR scanning, and digital signatures.  The app also works offline and syncs updates when the connection is restored.  iFactory also puts a lot of information around work orders into dashboards and reports. You can track metrics such as MTTR, MTBF, PM compliance, backlog aging, work order costs, and technician productivity, with options to drill down and export reports.  Source: iFactory AI Another useful part is the maintenance request portal. Operators and other employees can submit a request with an asset, photo, and urgency, and approved requests can be converted into tracked work orders.  For manufacturing teams, iFactory also connects work orders with parts, labor, inventory, safety, and production data. This makes the system less about simply creating and closing work orders and more about connecting the maintenance job with what is happening around it.  Do keep in mind, though, that there are currently no substantial independent user reviews available on the main software review platforms, so most of the information available about its features comes directly from iFactory.  iFactory AI also doesn’t publish standard pricing. The cost depends on the setup and modules you need, so you need to contact the company for a quote. Snapfix Snapfix takes a notably visual approach to work order management.  Instead of asking technicians or other frontline employees to fill out a traditional maintenance request, you can create a task using a photo, video, voice note, or QR code.  The traffic-light system is probably the easiest feature to recognize.  The three dots that also appear in the Snapfix logo show the status of a task at a glance: red means it still needs attention, yellow means it is in progress, and green means it is done. Source: Snapfix That may sound simple, but it is also what makes Snapfix different from a more traditional work order system.  The idea is to make reporting and checking tasks quick and visual, especially for people who do not spend their whole day working in maintenance software.  You can also scan a QR code attached to a room, asset, or piece of equipment to create or view related tasks.  Preventive maintenance schedules, offline access, voice notes, and a multilingual interface add to the same focus on quick, practical use in the field.  Another feature worth mentioning is Snapfix Rooms. It lets teams keep track of all tasks connected to a particular room or unit, including maintenance, inspections, and cleaning.  Source: Snapfix This feature is especially useful in hotel and property operations, where teams need to keep a history of everything that happens in a room, but the same idea can also be useful for facilities and other multi-site operations.  Snapfix has particularly strong roots in hospitality and property management, but the company has also extended its photo-first workflow to manufacturing and industrial maintenance.  For a manufacturing team, the main appeal is therefore less about having a completely different set of work order features and more about making it easier to report, understand, and track work visually.  What do users say about this approach to maintenance? Users on G2 like the photo-centric approach and traffic-light system, with one reviewer also mentioning their usefulness for inspections and compliance audits.  Source: G2 There are some criticisms, too. The same reviewer found certain workflows too rigid and felt that the desktop interface was weaker than the mobile experience.  Snapfix does not use a simple public per-user pricing model. You need to contact the company for pricing based on your requirements. Conclusion  At the end of the day, most work order software can do the basics. It all comes down to what you actually want your maintenance team to get out of it.  Maybe scheduling is your biggest headache, or you want AI and machine data to take more work off your team’s plate.  Or maybe you just want technicians to be able to report an issue without filling out a dozen fields. That’s really what to look at when comparing these tools - how they will fit into your team’s day-to-day work.

Every maintenance program depends on the people who perform it. That’s why in this article, we examine the latest statistics on maintenance technician demand, retirement, and skills gaps. We will also look at some of the steps organizations are taking in response to these maintenance workforce changes and what that means for you.  Installation, Maintenance, and Repair Employment Is Projected to Outpace Average Job Growth Through 2035 The maintenance field is growing, and it needs more workers every year. This is clear from data by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the federal agency that tracks employment and wages in the United States. Its Occupational Outlook Handbook projects how employment in each occupation will change between 2025 and 2035, including installation, maintenance, and repair jobs. According to these projections, more than half a million positions in this group will open each year, on average. Illustration: WorkTrek / Data: BLS Part of these openings comes from the growth of the field itself. Factories are installing more automated machinery, and every new conveyor or production line needs technicians to maintain it. BLS expects employment in these occupations to grow by around 5% between 2025 and 2035, compared to 3% for all occupations on average. Some maintenance positions are projected to grow especially fast.  For instance, employment of electrical power-line installers and repairers is projected to grow by 10%, while the outlook is 14% for industrial machinery mechanics, machinery maintenance workers, and millwrights. For maintenance managers, this means more employers will compete for the same limited number of positions. 40% of the Manufacturing Maintenance Workforce will Retire by 2030 While some of the job openings we just covered come from industry growth, many come from the need to replace workers who leave. In fact, retirement is becoming one of the biggest workforce challenges in maintenance. Oxmaint, a maintenance software company, examined this trend in its 2025 global report on manufacturing maintenance, which combines findings from several industry surveys. According to the report, a large share of the people who maintain manufacturing equipment will retire before the end of the decade. Illustration: WorkTrek / Data: Oxmaint In other words, two out of every five of these workers could leave their jobs within the next few years. This is happening because the workforce is aging, and many technicians who started decades ago are now close to retirement. The same report found that 69% of maintenance professionals are already 50 or older. For maintenance managers, an increasing priority is to record what these technicians know before they leave. Much of that knowledge, such as how a specific machine behaves or which repairs worked in the past, exists only in their memory. But organizations also need to consider who will replace these workers. After all, written procedures are useful only when there are trained technicians to follow them.  43% of Industrial Businesses Struggle to Recruit Maintenance Staff Unfortunately, when organizations look for people to replace departing technicians, many find the search difficult. ABB, a global electrification and automation company, examined this in its 2023 Value of Reliability survey. The survey, conducted by Sapio Research in July 2023, collected answers from 3,215 plant maintenance decision-makers across 11 sectors, including energy, metals, and rail. One of the questions asked was how difficult it is for these decision-makers to recruit maintenance staff. Their answers were split across four levels of difficulty, from not difficult at all to very difficult. Illustration: WorkTrek / Data: ABB Fortunately, the majority of respondents, 57% in total, do not find recruiting qualified maintenance staff difficult. That said, a large percentage, or 43%, find recruitment at least somewhat difficult. For these plants, positions stay open longer while the existing team covers the extra work. Some industries are affected more than others. The sectors that find recruitment the most difficult are the following: Metals (54%) Water and wastewater (52%) Rail (49%) Oil and gas (47%) Overall, recruitment difficulty is relatively split in half.  For plants that operate in one of the tougher sectors, it's a good idea to plan ahead and start hiring maintenance roles earlier than what’s typical for other roles. 36% of Maintenance Professionals Blame Labor Shortages for Increased Unplanned Downtime Workforce shortages also have a direct effect on unplanned downtime. This was one of the topics in the State of Industrial Maintenance 2026 report by MaintainX, a maintenance software company, which surveyed 2,234 maintenance and operations leaders across the United States and Canada. Among them, 34% said their facility experienced more unplanned downtime in the past 12 months. When asked about the reasons for this increase, respondents included two workforce issues among the top causes, as illustrated below. Illustration: WorkTrek / Data: MaintainX Labor shortages mean fewer technicians are available to respond to failures and complete planned work on time. When a team is short on technicians, preventive tasks are postponed, and minor faults have more time to develop into breakdowns. As a result, maintenance backlogs grow, and equipment runs longer between inspections. The second issue is also worth examining, since it concerns skills rather than the number of workers. In fact, as experienced specialists retire, newer technicians often take over equipment they have not worked on before and need more time to diagnose problems. As an industry, this means we need to focus on capability as well as headcount, so that the right knowledge is available when a machine fails. Industrial Organisations Lose About £240,000 in Productivity per Retiring Maintenance Specialist Another study quantified the effect of some of these workforce changes. Mainstream, a community that organizes maintenance and reliability conferences and research, examined the topic in The State of Maintenance and Reliability in the UK 2025. The report combines a survey of 103 UK maintenance and reliability professionals with roundtable discussions and 30 interviews with industry leaders. According to the report, UK industrial organizations lose almost a quarter of a million pounds in productivity each time a maintenance specialist retires. Illustration: WorkTrek / Data: Mainstream The main reason is that much of their knowledge was never documented. The report divides this issue into three parts: Limited formal documentation Past maintenance decisions and their reasons are not stored in systems Informal knowledge transfer In other words, when a specialist retires, the organization loses information that cannot be found in its own records. This makes knowledge loss a financial problem as well as an operational one. 59% of Organizations Facing Significant Downtime Plan to Improve Workforce Training According to the MaintainX survey we highlighted before, plans for reducing downtime differ depending on how much downtime an organization has experienced. Among the organizations with the largest increase in downtime, the majority plan to invest in their people through better training. Illustration: WorkTrek / Data: MaintainX This kind of maintenance training can cover technical skills for specific equipment, troubleshooting methods, and the use of new maintenance technologies. It's worth highlighting that this 59% figure applies only to organizations that experienced significantly more downtime. These organizations focus most on training, and 44% of them are also trying to hire more technicians. On the other hand, organizations that had significantly less downtime focus elsewhere, mainly on replacing aging equipment and improving their overall maintenance strategy. This is an understandable division. Organizations with rising downtime are likely short of people or skills, so they address the workforce first, while those with stable operations can direct resources to equipment and planning. So before deciding where to invest, it's a good idea to examine where your operations stand in terms of the amount of downtime. 68% of Maintenance Professionals Acknowledge the Importance of Internal Experience for Skill Development Knowledge is one of the most valuable resources a maintenance team has. Often, only a few experienced technicians have this knowledge, and many of them will retire soon. UpKeep, a maintenance software company, examined how teams develop skills in its State of Maintenance Report 2025, based on a survey of maintenance and reliability professionals. A large majority of respondents agree that knowledge shared inside the organization is key to developing skills. Illustration: WorkTrek / Data: Upkeep Internal experience is the practical knowledge technicians gain on-site, such as how a specific machine behaves and which repairs work on it. It comes from colleagues and daily work instead of formal courses or manuals. This means maintenance managers need a consistent way to transfer this experience from senior technicians to new hires. One solution is WorkTrek, a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) for planning, recording, and tracking maintenance work. Teams use it to organize and centralize their entire maintenance operations in one place. Source: WorkTrek In fact, every completed job can be recorded with the asset involved, the steps taken, and the technician's notes, creating a searchable history for each machine. As a result, a CMMS like WorkTrek can serve as the basis for technician training. Instead of relying only on informal conversations, they can study documented procedures and past work on an asset before starting a job. This way, each technician's experience stays with the organization even after a person leaves. 88% of Facilities Outsource at Least Some Maintenance Work Technician shortages are not a problem organizations can solve quickly, as hiring and training can take months, if not years. In the meantime, organizations rely on outside help to complete maintenance work. According to Oxmaint's report, the overwhelming majority of facilities assign at least part of their maintenance work to external contractors. Illustration: WorkTrek / Data: Oxmaint On average, these facilities outsourced 23% of their maintenance tasks. This means contractors perform close to a quarter of the work, while internal teams handle the rest. Outsourcing is often the only option when the team lacks the skills for a job, such as work on specialized equipment. It can also cost less than employing a full-time technician for tasks that occur only a few times a year. At the same time, outsourcing has downsides, since contractors know less about a site's equipment and often leave no record of what they learned. 38% of Organizations Cite Apprenticeship Programs as Effective in Bridging Generational Gaps In addition to outsourcing, organizations are starting initiatives to bring younger people into maintenance careers. A key challenge here is motivation, since many young people do not consider maintenance an attractive career. The work is often seen as physically demanding and less modern than jobs in technology. The UpKeep survey we highlighted looked at youth engagement, and the chart below shows the share of respondents who named each of the three initiatives as effective. Illustration: WorkTrek / Data: Upkeep As you can see, each of these approaches offers young people practical contact with maintenance work early in their careers. They also connect newcomers with experienced professionals, which supports the knowledge transfer we discussed earlier. This is meant to address the labor supply at its source by increasing the number of people who choose maintenance as a career. As 54% of respondents find it difficult or very difficult to attract talent from younger generations, these efforts are becoming necessary. Because training a technician takes years, the youth programs of today will determine how well teams handle retirements later in the decade. Conclusion The numbers show a field that needs more skilled people, as many experienced technicians are leaving. The main thing to remember is that your team's knowledge matters as much as its size. Start recording that knowledge and investing in new people today, and your team will be ready for the changes ahead.

Key Takeaways: Electricity accounts for roughly 76% of what an air compressor costs you over its lifetime. You need to stay mindful of typical service intervals, which vary by component. Between 75% and 80% of plant failures trace back to human factors. Your air compressor’s purchase price is about 12% of what it will cost you during its lifetime. Electricity is 76%. Poor maintenance practices only increase these operational costs. A clogged filter or saturated separator element can increase your power bill as it degrades months or years before a full breakdown. If you want to keep your air compressor costs under control, you need to approach maintenance the right way. Below are six efficient habits that keep plant air safe and your costs predictable. Don’t Overlook the User Manual Good air compressor maintenance starts with reading on-hand documentation. Generic checklists pulled from the internet don’t account for your machine’s specific lubricant type, duty cycle, or the ambient temperature in your compressor room. Therefore, treat the manual as your single source of truth. The most important thing it tells you is that service intervals are based on running hours, not on the calendar. As FS-Curtis describes in its guidance on oil-flooded units, service is carried out at whichever comes first, hours or months, and you shorten those intervals by 25% to 50% in dusty, hot, or humid conditions (or when you’re running a food-grade lubricant). The manual also outlines the safety guidelines for your specific machine, and Atlas Copco emphasizes reading it first, before any other maintenance step. Different units have different isolation points, and assuming yours matches the last one you worked on is how people get hurt. ComponentTypical intervalWatch forInlet air filter~2,000 hoursDusty plants need it soonerOil filter~2,000 hoursLong-life variants differOil sample for analysis~2,000 hoursOften a warranty conditionCompressor oil4,000 to 8,000 hours or annuallyMineral shorter; synthetic longerAir/oil separator element4,000 to 8,000 hours, or 10 psi pressure dropEvery 2 psi of drop adds about 1% to brake horsepowerFull PM, airend and valves4,000 hours or annuallyHot or dusty rooms shorten the interval As Lewis Systems notes in its rotary screw guidance, a separator element left past its pressure-drop threshold costs you horsepower for every hour of operation. Remember that the manual also often doubles as your warranty contract, meaning ignoring it could further lead to extra expenses. Atlas Copco’s extended warranty terms require that servicing is completed at the published intervals using genuine parts and lubricants, that the record of that work is logged against the specific machine serial number, and that an oil sample is taken at the time of failure for any claim to proceed. Miss any one of those and a covered failure stops being covered. Illustration: WorkTrek / Source: Atlas Copco So, before you build a schedule, read what the manufacturer already wrote for your machine.  Then plan maintenance around that. Keep Maintenance on Track with a Checklist The manual tells you what should happen, but it doesn’t solve issues on its own. To keep your air compressor safe and secure against malfunctions, you’ll need a robust, readable checklist. While the specifics of the checklist should depend on your facility, one universal rule worth adopting is the cadence and scope of maintenance actions. Some technical aspects will require daily inspection; others can be checked on a monthly basis. Here’s a simple example: Illustration: WorkTrek / Sources: Industrial Air Power / Lewis Systems You might be surprised that gauge readings and oil level checks are daily items. This should be standard across many industries because of their function as predictors for deeper-set issues. As Gregory Gilliland, Quality Manager at FS-Curtis, a manufacturer of compressed air and air treatment solutions, put it in an interview with Reliable Plant:  Illustration: WorkTrek / Quote: Gregory Gilliland for Reliable Plant As he asserts, when a compressor’s energy use spikes with no link to something obvious, like increased production demand, “it’s a strong sign that something within the system is degrading or becoming inefficient.” A structured checklist that can be easily accessed helps catch these issues before they escalate. Source: WorkTrek A technician cannot be expected to carry every tolerance and every task in their head, and checklists shouldn’t just provide action items without contextual guidance. If you want a starting point, this preventive maintenance checklist guide covers the general structure in more detail. Don’t Underestimate the Power of Lubrication Oil in a rotary screw compressor does more than reduce friction. It seals the rotors, carries heat out of the airend, and keeps metal off metal. Get it wrong and the damage lands on the bearings. SKF puts poor lubrication behind more than 36% of premature bearing failures, with contamination responsible for a further 14%. Three mistakes account for most of it: Treating the oil change as a fixed dateOil life depends heavily on operating temperature, and as FS-Curtis notes, a compressor running hot burns through its interval faster than what the manual says.Reaching for whatever is on the shelfAutomotive engine oil lacks the anti-foaming and water-separation properties a compressor needs. Always rely only on fit-for-purpose materialsGetting the quantity wrongToo little shows up as high discharge temperature and rising power draw. Too much creates buildup at the separator, and eventually you’ll find oil pushed downstream into your dryers, filters, and tools Hence why it’s recommended to take a sample every 2,000 hours. Remember, however, that none of this will help much if the filter or separator element you use in the first place is the wrong one. Don’t Cut Corners on Genuine Spare Parts Atlas Copco warns that replica filters, for example, can produce higher pressure drops than genuine parts, increasing energy consumption and, in the worst case, causing the compressor to fail outright: “Operating conditions play a crucial role for the lifetime of your air compressor and its components. Compressor oils and filtration parts serve as the first and most important barrier to protect the machine. That is why it is key to safeguard the performance, reliability, and lifetime of your air compressors with genuine parts […].” Then there is the warranty. As covered in section one, Atlas Copco’s terms require genuine parts and lubricants, along with documented servicing. Fitting a cheaper equivalent simultaneously risks components and could void your coverage entirely. The bigger problem is that “aftermarket” and “counterfeit” are not always distinguishable at the loading dock. US Customs and Border Protection reports that counterfeits are frequently made with substandard materials, and its seizures of fake industrial and automotive components run into hundreds of thousands of dollars at a single port. A legitimate aftermarket supplier with published specifications is a defensible choice. An unbranded element from a marketplace listing is not. In practice, it’s worth keeping a minimum backup inventory to avoid rushed substitutions. Keep part numbers, quantities, and reorder points against each asset in your parts and inventory records to prevent decisions being made under pressure at 2 am. Make Safety Measures a Priority Switching off a compressor doesn’t make it safe to work with, as the receiver tank and the lines downstream of it hold energy long after the motor stops. And that’s not all. Rotating parts, surfaces that haven’t properly cooled down from continuous operation, a live electrical supply – the list of hazards goes on.  This often goes underestimated, and OSHA’s control of hazardous energy standard, 29 CFR 1910.147, covers exactly this problem. It requires that stored energy be released, restrained, or otherwise rendered safe before servicing begins, not merely that the power be cut. Interestingly enough, it’s also the fourth most-cited standard in 2025, as reported by the National Safety Council Congress. Illustration: WorkTrek / Data: Occupational Health & Safety So, a safe compressor shutdown and isolation sequence should look similar to this: Source: WorkTrek This sequence may look obvious, but if the facility and personnel don’t foster a culture of safety, it’s easy to turn a blind eye to some readings, or skip step three entirely. Also, it’s just as easy for a contractor who has never seen your installation to miss the second receiver still holding pressure. A laminated sheet on the compressor room wall won’t catch either of those. Instead, put the lockout steps and the PPE list inside the work order (as shown below), and the technician reads them on a phone before touching anything, with the closed job recording that they did. Source: WorkTrek That’s what compliance and safety controls in a maintenance system are for. These checks constitute easy, reliable fixes and remove the burden of having to memorize steps for semi-annual maintenance procedures from your employees. Keep a Detailed Maintenance Log Every habit in this article produces paperwork. Without somewhere to put it, you end up managing the compressor from memory. You’ll know it had a bad year, but not how many hours it has run since the separator was changed, which derails your manufacturer interval count.  When nobody logs the hours, all you’re relying on is plain guesswork. A log records critical data, including: Service history Replacement parts and their numbers Running hours tallied at each intervention Oil analysis results Trend readings from daily checks Two years of that can tell you plenty about a machine, its state, and whether it might be time for another rebuild. However, if maintenance logs are so valuable, why are so many teams struggling to keep them? The 2025 Zapium research provides an answer.  It shows that many maintenance teams still operate at a very low level of maturity, relying on manual processes, with no systematic way to track maintenance or assign tasks.  Illustration: WorkTrek / Data: Zapium The obvious solution is to move it all into software and digitize your records. That’s also where most of these projects die, because the technician who has done the job the same way for fifteen years has no interest in learning a system that makes their day longer. The key is making data tracking easier, not more complicated.  This is where WorkTrek comes in. With our CMMS, you can simplify your records and boost operational efficiency while minimizing friction. Technicians follow a simple procedure, from opening the work order to recording data off the panel, filling out the necessary information, including attaching photos/documents, and lastly, confirming purchase orders for replacements.  All of this can be done through their phones. Over time, maintenance history of each asset is created, so every job, part, reading, and completed safety procedure sits in one timeline. Source: WorkTrek Beyond making planning and maintenance management easier, this timeline also serves as evidence when someone asks for information about audits, insurance, or your recordkeeping measures. Conclusion You won’t always see all the problems with your air compressor at a glance, but they will cause damage nonetheless.  They will drive up electricity costs while dragging down production efficiency, not to mention health risks in your facility. But the six habits we’ve outlined here can make a difference. They will provide you with a structured and repeatable, yet simple system to keep your maintenance on track.  The cumulative savings and peace of mind are worth the initial effort. 

If your work orders are still managed through spreadsheets, emails, paper notes, or verbal requests, you may already know how easy it is to miss important information or even tasks.  But moving to software can feel like trading one problem for another.  Will your team actually use it? Will it be too complicated? And is it worth the cost?  The good news is that you do not need a complex system. There are simple work order tools built to fit smaller teams, budgets, and busy schedules.  Here are five worth considering. WorkTrek Our CMMS WorkTrek can help you replace scattered work requests and manual work order tracking with one place to manage all your maintenance work.  You can start with a work request, turn it into a work order, assign it to the right person, schedule the job, and track its progress until it is completed.  In WorkTrek, your team can submit work requests from the web or mobile app. You can also let employees, tenants, or other users send requests through the portal or email.  Source: WorkTrek Once you turn a request into a work order, you can add photos, documents, and instructions, and leave comments for technicians.  For recurring jobs, you can set up preventive maintenance tasks, as well as attach procedures, checklists, and safety information to each work order. Source: WorkTrek Technicians can access work orders on their phones, do their work, and record all the details the office needs, including how much time it took them and which spare parts and materials they used. Illustration: WorkTrek When the work is completed, they can also sign it digitally.  You can organize all these work orders in a list, map, or scheduler view where you can clearly see which orders are approved, assigned, in execution, waiting for material, or completed. Source: WorkTrek If you work with external contractors, you can invite them to track work progress and completion as well.  Source: WorkTrek For teams responsible for multiple similar machines or an entire production line, WorkTrek supports multi-asset work orders.  Instead of creating a separate work order for every identical asset, you can group them together and track the labor and parts used for each one.  Source: WorkTrek Although WorkTrek is abundant with all these features, its users highlight that it’s still incredibly easy to use: Source: G2 Pricing plans start at $29 per user per month, with work orders, asset management, simple inventory, reports, and dashboards included in the Starter plan.  Source: WorkTrek Preventive maintenance, advanced inventory, contract management, and subcontractor management are available on the $49 Professional plan.You can try WorkTrek for free and see the work order management in action! Coast If you want a straightforward way to keep your team on top of work orders, Coast is another software worth trying out.  You can create work orders, assign them to team members, set priorities, and update their status as work progresses.  Source: Coast Your team can add notes, checklists, procedures, photos, and other attachments to each order, just as in WorkTrek.  Real-time messaging also keeps conversations connected to the work order, so important details do not get lost in separate emails or chat messages.  Coast also supports repeating work orders, notifications, and workflow automations.  Source: Coast That can be useful if you regularly handle the same maintenance tasks and want to reduce manual follow-up.  Users seem to appreciate these features.  One review notes that maintenance tasks stay organized across departments and that mobile updates help the team respond faster during busy periods. Source: Capterra There are a few things to keep in mind, though.  The same reviewer finds the inventory tools basic, while another reviewer wished there were more notification options and found it difficult to locate a work order after missing an initial update.  Source: Capterra When it comes to pricing, the free plan is a useful place to start for a small business.  It includes unlimited work orders, real-time messaging, file uploads, and up to five repeating work orders.  If you need unlimited repeating work orders, time and cost tracking, permissions, or workflow automations, you will need the Starter plan at $25 per user per month at the current promotional rate.  Keep in mind that some really important features, including multiple reminders, reporting, dashboards, signature capture, and external request forms, are available only in higher plans. eWorkOrders If you want a more traditional CMMS with plenty of maintenance features, eWorkOrders gives you a solid set of tools for managing work orders, assets, preventive maintenance, materials, and service requests.  Source: Capterra When someone submits a service request, eWorkOrders can turn it into a work order and assign the task to a technician based on factors such as their skills, availability, and location.  Source: Capterra You can also use the software to manage preventive maintenance, track assets and materials, store documents, and monitor performance through reports and dashboards.  User feedback is generally positive about ease of use and support.  One reviewer described the software as easy to learn and praised the trainer for making onboarding straightforward, but he also noted that inventory tracking required a more expensive package, which is worth considering if parts management is important to you.  Source: Software Advice For a small business, the biggest question is probably how much functionality you actually need.  The Starter plan costs $380 per month and includes unlimited users, work orders, asset management, preventive maintenance, materials management, reporting, and customer service requests.  However, mobile and tablet access, along with QR and barcode scanning, start with the Advanced plan at $480 per month.  Source: eWorkOrders The unlimited-user model can make the pricing more attractive as your team grows. For a very small team, however, the monthly cost may be harder to justify.  You should also check which features you need before deciding, as inventory control, multi-site management, API access, and signature capture are reserved only for Enterprise. RO App RO App is built with repair and service businesses in mind, making it particularly relevant if you run a repair shop or a small field service operation.  You can create work orders from leads or client requests and manage the whole job from one place.  Source: Ro App The system can automatically fill in customer and asset information, assign jobs, track technician hours, and update inventory as parts are used.  Your team can also create estimates and invoices, collect signatures and payments, and let customers approve work online.  Source: Ro App Technicians can create, update, and complete work orders from their phones while staying connected to customer information and schedules.  You can also customize work order forms by choosing which fields are required, setting default values, and adjusting the information your team sees.  User feedback for the Ro App is generally positive.  One repair shop user described the interface as very easy and intuitive and praised its customization options.  Source: Capterra Another reviewer liked the mobile app and photo uploads but found the way the system handles dates problematic.  Pricing starts at €29 per month for the Startup plan, which includes three employees, with additional employees costing €5 per month.  The Business plan starts at €69 per month, while Enterprise starts at €99 per month.  There is also a €15-per-month Hobby plan for very small operations, although it limits you to two employees and 100 work orders or sales per 30 days. Field Ascend If you run a small field service business, Field Ascend gives you a way to manage work orders alongside scheduling, dispatch, customer communication, and preventive maintenance.  That makes it more relevant to businesses where technicians regularly travel to customer sites than to teams managing maintenance entirely in-house.  You can create jobs, assign them to technicians, and manage them from a planner board or map. Source: Field Ascend Work orders can include equipment details, tasks, job instructions, parts, notes, and photos.  Technicians can access their tasks through the mobile app, update task progress, and record what they did on site.  Source: Field Ascend  You can also connect preventive maintenance findings to follow-up repair jobs, then keep the completed work, labor, materials, and customer documentation together.  The platform also includes a customer portal, quotes, invoices, reports, and dashboards, so you can manage more of the service process from one place.  When it comes to user feedback, people generally like the software's ease of use and flexibility.  One reviewer appreciated the different settings, filters, and views and highlighted the customizable preventive maintenance check sheets.  They also noted that the Projects module still needed further development.  Pricing-wise, the Pro plan costs $13 per user per month, with a minimum of three users, so pricing starts at $39 per month.  Source: Field Ascend You get scheduling, dispatch, work orders, mobile access, preventive maintenance, customer portal visibility, quotes, invoices, reports, and dashboards.  There is also a 30-day free trial with no setup fee or required annual contract. Conclusion Hopefully, one of these tools caught your attention.  If you need a flexible work order and maintenance system that can grow with your team, WorkTrek is worth a closer look.  If you run a repair or service business, RO App may be the best fit, while Field Ascend makes sense if scheduling technicians and managing customer jobs are a big part of your day-to-day work.  Choose software that fits the way your team already works and make it better.