Work Order Management 101

Key Takeaways:

• Tracking and performance analysis are essential for effective work order management.
• Manual systems often lead to reactive maintenance, creating confusion, unclear priorities, and misunderstandings.
• Over a third of businesses saw a 25% uptime boost after shifting from reactive to proactive maintenance.
• CMMS solutions streamline workflows to reveal both inefficiencies and opportunities.

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Did you know that almost 70% of facilities experience unplanned outages at least once a month?

Often, that’s because maintenance tasks fall through the cracks, delaying repairs until small issues escalate.

Managing work orders proactively prevents this.

It can boost efficiency, ensure compliance, and extend asset lifespan—all while cutting unnecessary expenses.

In this guide, we’ll break down the fundamentals of work order management, from key stages and benefits to common pitfalls.

Plus, we’ll explore how technology can transform your maintenance operations for good.

Let’s get started!

Work Order Management Defined

Let’s start by defining what exactly is work order management.

Work orders outline and formalize repair and maintenance tasks across various industries, ensuring they’re completed efficiently and on time.

Work order management is a systematic approach to managing several work orders simultaneously and with the best possible outcomes in mind.

In other words, effective work order management helps your business promptly and precisely identify, schedule, execute, and review each work order.

Moreover, it enables you to manage a large volume of work orders by prioritizing tasks and optimizing your resources.

The goal is a smoothly functioning facility, well-maintained equipment, and seamless operations.

Businesses invest in their work order management processes to minimize downtime, extend asset life, and maintain compliance with safety and industry standards.

This process involves:

• Individuals reporting issues or requesting specific work
• Maintenance managers or supervisors reviewing and overseeing activities
• Technicians who are assigned hands-on tasks
• Planners scheduling and organizing work

Work order management is typically divided into distinct stages to keep everyone aligned, as pictured below.

Each of these five steps contributes to effective work order management, and we’ll explore exactly how in the next section.

Key Stages of Work Order Management

Managing work orders is a complex process, so the easiest way of getting it right is to break it down into several critical stages.

Let’s look at each one, beginning with work order creation.

Creation

Creating a work order from a submitted request is the first step in ensuring that tasks are completed efficiently.

Work orders can be generated based on scheduled preventive tasks or in response to issues your staff or clients reported.

In both cases, work orders need to include key information such as:

• Task description
• Resources
• Location
• Priority

The list of materials, tools, personnel, the urgency level, and the site or asset location are all crucial for scheduling.

Your work order format can vary depending on whether it’s used internally or externally and the industry in question.

Below is an example of a standard work order template.

To streamline the process further, many businesses use work order management software that allows users to submit requests instantly, using mobile or desktop devices.

An agile and intuitive work request system ensures that issues are reported promptly and with all the necessary details, improving response time.

Assignment

Once a work request is approved and a work order created, it’s time to assign it to the right mechanic or team.

Several important factors must be considered, from ensuring technicians have the necessary expertise and no scheduling clashes to their proximity to the site or asset.

If a task requires immediate attention, technicians may be reassigned to prioritize it, while lower-priority work is deferred to the maintenance backlog.

Optimizing technicians’ routes and assignments is essential to maintaining efficiency, so businesses aim to automate the process as much as possible.

Whether manual methods or digital solutions are used, this stage is crucial to reducing downtime and improving overall maintenance efficiency.

Execution

At this point, technicians carry out the task as specified in the work order while logging their progress and any issues that may arise.

For instance, an incomplete work order or unforeseen complications can substantially slow down work, causing it to exceed the allocated time and/or budget.

As such, sharing updates helps keep the relevant staff in the loop and ready to make changes as necessary.

Tracking can take different forms, including:

• Manual logs and whiteboards
• Checklists and paper forms
• Spreadsheets

Using a centralized board, like the one shown below, enhances visibility, especially if it is complemented by spreadsheets or paper records submitted at the end of each shift.

However, supervisors may still need to conduct daily check-ins and confirm progress via phone or messaging apps without full automation.

Completion

Even with the work order marked as completed, more must be done.

At this point, technicians document all their activities, noting the time spent on each task and the materials used in the process.

Sharing relevant observations about the asset’s condition and updating its history ensures compliance with quality standards.

It also guides future maintenance activities, as pointed out by senior inspector engineer Karthik Preyeswary:

On the other hand, neglecting to do so can impact the success of future efforts, ultimately affecting the asset’s health.

After recording all the relevant information, the next and final step is to review the work order.

Performance Analysis

Reviewing work orders focuses on measuring several metrics and evaluating key outcomes.

A detailed analysis helps you identify trends and improve your processes and cost-efficiency based on actual performance data.

There are a few KPIs to keep in mind, but here’s a quick breakdown of the essentials.

Average Response Time	Reveals how quickly the maintenance team addresses service requests.
On-Time Work Order Performance	Shows whether work orders are completed within their expected timeframes.
Estimated Maintenance Backlog Hours	Indicates if the maintenance team is overwhelmed by the volume of tasks.
Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF)	Indicates asset reliability by measuring the average equipment operating between failures.

Naturally, built-in reporting features within computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) make analysis and data-driven decision-making easier.

Regular performance analysis helps your maintenance team fine-tune their processes, improve response times, and allocate resources more effectively.

With the right KPIs and CMMS reporting, you can make data-driven decisions that will ultimately lead to significant operational benefits.

Benefits of Effective Work Order Management

Investing in a structured work order management process delivers several benefits essential for better business.

The idea behind it is simple.

When tasks are clearly defined, easy to track, and adequately assigned, managing work orders becomes more efficient.

Consequently, streamlined processes ensure you’re using reliable equipment and experiencing shorter and less frequent downtime.

A recent facilities management report by JLL Technologies reveals that over two-thirds of facilities experience major critical equipment outages at least once a month.

The consequences of prolonged downtime are severe, as cited in the report, costing a typical industrial business an average of $124,669 per hour.

Are you eager to prevent such disruptions and turn losses into savings?

Then you should start by getting your work orders under control.

Work order management helps you standardize and simplify complex maintenance workflows when done right.

Centralizing your task tracking and management ensures all maintenance activities become visible and manageable from a single control point.

As a result, you’re reducing manual coordination and improving communication between your teams while paving the way for proactive maintenance and more reliable equipment.

ABB’s data shows that moving away from reactive maintenance led to a substantial increase in uptime among 38% of surveyed businesses.

High asset reliability ensures that resources are used wisely, while operational continuity impacts business reputation and financial performance.

Improving work order management is also reflected in better documentation practices, helping you maintain comprehensive records of all activities.

You can rely on historical data and insights to make better decisions and comply with relevant protocols and safety measures.

Doing so can help you avoid the case of a pharmaceutical manufacturer, Granules India, whose facility was temporarily closed by the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA)

According to the Indian financial services giant Motilal Oswal, USFDA inspections revealed several compliance issues, from cleaning and maintenance to inadequate document management.

The ordeal at the Gagillpur facility meant a month-long halt of production, leading to a 6% decline in profit after tax and a 2% lower revenue for Q3.

A few lapses in maintenance and operational procedures may not leave a mark on their own, but what happens when your work orders pile up?

Problems multiply, bringing you closer to the Granules India scenario.

Effective work order management clears the playing field by ensuring timely and structured maintenance activities to prevent violations and fines.

To sum up, whether you’re aiming for better uptime and cost control or want to stay on top of regulatory standards, streamlined work order management will get the job done.

Why Work Order Management Fails: Common Pitfalls

To improve work order management, you must first recognize and understand the common pitfalls that hinder efficiency.

For starters, managing work orders is never straightforward, but these complexities become more evident at scale.

A recent survey of facility managers reveals that the volume of work orders increased by over 50% in 2024, contributing to proactive WO management becoming a top priority.

An earlier report by Akira Box indicated that over half of the facilities struggle to be proactive, spending most of their time on incoming service requests and corrective WOs.

There are numerous reasons why a reactive approach seems like the only choice, including:

• Poor workflows
• Unclear priorities
• Misunderstandings
• Inadequate documentation

Most of these issues can be traced back to fragmented work order management, as shown in the example of MillerCoors (now Molson Coors) brewing company.

Before the company introduced targeted maintenance improvements, poor planning and scheduling resulted in several preventable asset failures across facilities.

According to Dan Roberts, the company’s former Technical Lead, work orders were reviewed using a computer system, but the distribution still relied on printed copies.

Worse, there was little to no strategic planning, making it difficult to determine priorities, leading to costly yet completely avoidable delays.

One of MillerCoors’ strategies was to create comprehensive work orders, while other tactics directly addressed communication and workflows.

As one Reddit user points out, poor communication and low accountability within a team often hinder successful work order execution.

Even if there’s extensive planning, ineffective shift handovers and undocumented interventions can lead to mismanaged work orders and unexpected failures.

This is especially true when you have no mechanisms for real-time tracking.

To ensure that all activities are properly logged, communicated, and documented, consider assigning a single point of contact for work order approvals and devise detailed review procedures.

Additionally, regular maintenance meetings, whether daily or weekly, will help teams adjust schedules based on new urgent requests.

You don’t need dedicated software to determine priorities—you can use a simple risk assessment matrix.

Reactive maintenance becomes inevitable without structured workflows and accountability, impacting work order management.

However, solutions exist—from the process improvements we discussed earlier to more comprehensive technology adoption.

Role of Technology in Work Order Management

Technology streamlines work order management by automating workflows and providing comprehensive tracking and reporting capabilities.

As we’ve already established, managing work orders manually creates inefficiencies that can quickly lead to costly downtime.

Automation does the opposite.

According to Smartsheet’s 2017 report, workers across industries see automation as the solution to repetitive tasks, highlighting it as the biggest benefit.

The benefits of automating data collection, approvals, or updates are equally significant in manufacturing, facilities management, and similar industries.

Tools like CMMS improve your work order management processes’ visibility, accuracy, and efficiency, making it easier to manage tasks, prioritize work, and analyze performance.

One of these key features is digital work order documentation, which proved a game changer for the Australian waste management company Cleanaway.

Completing fleet maintenance with manual work orders generated over four million pieces of paper for a business focusing on sustainability.

What’s worse, Cleanaway’s admin teams and mechanics still had to deal with missing information.

The company’s Executive General Manager, Preet Brar, explained that things like ineligible writing or incomplete information proved to be huge time wasters.

All that changed by investing in digitization.

In just three months, Cleanaway’s teams completed over 3,300 tablet-based work orders, thereby saving about 42,000 pieces of paper and precious hours.

This exemplifies how work order management software helps reduce manual errors and optimize resource allocation by putting all the schedules, lists, and insights at your fingertips.

WorkTrek’s dashboard speaks for itself.

It keeps all the information on your past, current, and future work orders in one place and enables you to add as many details as necessary to each individual WO.

WorkTrek displays maps in addition to lists and tables, giving you seamless access to the geolocation data of active work orders.

It’s pretty neat if you’re managing multiple facilities across cities or states.

An intuitive interface coupled with robust real-time tracking and reporting capabilities gives you total control over critical work order management processes.

Greg Christensen, Podcast Host at CMMSradio, sums it up nicely:

Ultimately, leveraging technology to enhance your maintenance operations can drive swift transformation, improving efficiency, cutting costs, and enabling data-driven decisions.

Conclusion

Mastering work order management lays the foundation for more efficient, reliable, and cost-effective operations.

By adopting proactive strategies and prioritizing continuous improvement, facility managers can streamline maintenance, minimize downtime, and prevent costly surprises.

With real-time tracking and automation, you can turn chaos into control even faster, keeping your team ahead of issues instead of reacting to them.

Ready to transform your maintenance processes?

Start today and discover how your business can stay efficient, compliant, and one step ahead!