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About Work Orders

A work order is a standardized document that details a maintenance task or other work. It includes information such as:

  • The asset that needs maintenance.
  • The location where the work will happen.
  • Who is responsible for completing the work.
  • Which parts you need to do the work.
  • When the work should start, and when it should be completed by.
  • How long the work should take.

Administrators and Full Users can create and manage work orders for an organization. For more information, see Create a Work Order.

  • Administrators can generate reports to get insights into their organizations work orders. For more information, see About Work Order Reports.

Types of Work Orders​

Standard Work Orders​

A standard work order details a maintenance task for a single asset or location, or some other work. You can create a standard work order from scratch or by using a work order template.

Multi-Asset Work Orders​

For line-based maintenance, or maintaining multiple instances of the same asset, you can create multi-asset work orders. When you add more than one asset to a work order, MaintainX creates a new work order for each asset.

  • The original work order becomes the parent work order.
  • The work orders for each asset become sub-work orders.

As you complete the sub-work orders, you can track the overall progress from the parent work order. For more information, see About Multi-Asset Work Orders.

Cycle Count Work Orders​

Cycle counts help you keep your parts inventory in MaintainX in sync with your real world inventory. A cycle count is a reconciliation operation where you count real world parts to ensure the quantity in MaintainX matches the quantity you physically have on hand. You schedule cycle counts in the Cycle Counts module, and conduct them using a special type of work order that appears in your work order queue. For more information, see About Cycle Counts.

External Work Orders​

An external work order is a shareable work order that you send to people outside of your MaintainX organization. They're useful for organizations that outsource work from 3rd parties. Recipients have limited access to shared work orders. For more information, see External Work Orders.

Work Order Concepts​

Here are some important concepts about work orders.

Preventive vs. Reactive Work Orders​

Work orders can be Preventive or Reactive.

  • Preventive work orders are for scheduled maintenance or other recurring scheduled work. Most of the time, you set them up as chains of recurring work orders.
  • Reactive work orders are for responding to one-off events like machine breakdowns or urgent repairs. Most of the time, reactive work orders are not recurring.

Work Order Chains/Recurrence​

A work order chain is a series of recurring preventive work orders to perform the same maintenance task at regular intervals. For example, you can create a work order chain for daily inspection of a machine. For more information, see Create a Work Order.

Work Order History​

Work order history exists when you create work orders for a MaintainX entity such as Locations or Assets. This data shows how many work orders are created and completed on the entity within a selected date range. This information lives in the details pane of the selected items of the entity that you want the work history for.

Corrective Actions​

A corrective action is a work order created manually or automatically in response to an event or a condition such as Anomaly Detection or through a specific procedure action in a work order chain. For more information, see Trigger a Work Order.

Resource Planning​

MaintainX has a dedicated view for resource planning. You can use the Workload View to plan, schedule, and assign work from work orders. You can see users' capacity, which helps you balance your team's workload. For more information, see About Resource Planning.

Time and Cost Tracking​

While completing a work order, users can record time and work order costs in the Time and Cost tracking section located in the work order details page. This feature shows Administrators how many units of a part are in stock, time spent on a specific asset, and other costs related to a specific work order. You can export this data through the Reporting module. For more information, see Create a Work Order