Work Order Close Outs for a Successful Work Order Completion

You manage your work order perfectly until it is time to hand it over to maintenance workers to add relevant pieces of information about the work. You later realize that key information is missing or that your work order was not closed out efficiently. Does this sound familiar? Most organizations fail to close out work orders properly due to the way their organization functions or mere lack of knowledge on how to leverage CMMS software.

Avoiding insufficient data in work order close outs

1. Train and explain: The leading problem of data gaps in work order close outs is the lack of knowledge of the key elements that are necessary to report. Data such as labor hours, costs, reasons why equipment failed, spare parts used etc., are all necessary and crucial for future analysis. Workers who enter this data may report some key points but neglect other essential information. Training them to use CMMS software to its best advantage can help bridge this gap and yield useful information about the order.

2. Multiple failure codes: Within the broad realm of failure codes, some organizations use generic codes for all equipment types, resulting in workers having to sort through massive amounts of codes to find the right one. This results in wasted time and effort and often worthless data as incorrect codes are frequently entered.

3. Missing/ Incorrect location: Sometimes the data may be captured, but it is of no use since workers may attribute this data to a wrong location or wrong asset, which leads to inaccuracies in work order close outs. This results in wasted time in collecting and providing data that will never get used. Instead, what might help is to check and verify that all information reported is against the right location and asset and that it is accurately described.

Having the right data at the right time

Working hand in hand with your maintenance team can help ensure that you are obtaining the results you are looking for in work order close outs. Starting with small steps can help you go a long way in terms of achieving great, clean data, which can be used to analyze work order data for preventive maintenance and other maintenance tasks. To learn more about how NRX Work Order Analysis can help you improve the quality of work order data, click on one of our resources below, or book a demo with us to help you achieve productivity and clean data.