What Is a Work Order? [+ 4 Templates]

Hey there! Work orders can seem like boring paperwork, but they‘re actually super important for running any business operations smoothly. In this comprehensive guide, I‘ll walk you through everything you need to know about work orders so you can start leveraging them effectively.

Stick with me, and you‘ll be a work order expert in no time!

What Is a Work Order and Why Is It So Important?

Simply put, a work order is a document that formally authorizes and provides all the key details required to complete a specific job. It serves as the catalyst that transforms a verbal request into a set of clear written instructions to get work done.

You‘re probably familiar with work orders already from daily life. For example, anytime you take your car to the auto shop for maintenance, the mechanic starts by opening a work order ticket in their system. This captures your request for service, notes your car‘s info, and documents exactly what work will be done.

Without a work order, the mechanic would have to rely on scribbles on a notepad or just try to remember your verbal instructions! This would lead to mistakes, inefficiency, and poor documentation.

Now let‘s examine why work orders are essential for managing operations in any business:

They Formally Request Work

Work orders allow clients (whether external customers or internal teams) to formally submit requests for work to be done. This documentation provides critical details like:

• Who requested the work
• What assets need service/repair
• When the work is required
• Where the work will happen
• Why the work is needed

With a standardized work order process, anyone in your organization can log a request in writing rather than just calling up technicians and hoping they remember all the details!

They Provide Complete Work Instructions

In addition to submitting the initial request, work orders allow the requestor to provide all the information needed for the job to be successfully completed.

For example, a solid work order will likely include details like:

• The full scope of work required
• Any parts, materials, or tools needed
• Specific tasks and steps involved
• Important safety precautions
• Links to technical documentation
• Expected outcomes and deliverables
• And more!

This transforms a vague "something‘s broken, please fix it" request into a detailed set of instructions so technicians know exactly how to complete the job properly.

They Create Critical Documentation Records

As work orders move through review, approval, scheduling, and completion, they document every step of the process and all details related to the job.

Information like technician assigned, labor hours, costs, parts used, dates, approvals, and more are all captured in the work order record.

This documentation becomes invaluable for:

• Compliance: Work orders provide detailed audit trails and history for legal and regulatory compliance.

• Accounting: Work orders enable accurate cost accounting, client billing, inventory management, and cost controls.

• Analytics: The data in work orders facilitates analysis on labor productivity, asset performance, expenditures, workload trends, and more.

• Continuous Improvement: Work order history helps identify common repair issues so you can implement preventive maintenance and better asset reliability.

Without comprehensive documentation, you end up with organizational silos and important information falling through the cracks.

They Facilitate Communication

As a work order moves through your system from request to completion, it provides a common thread for collaboration and communication across teams including:

• Clients/Requestors: Work orders keep clients updated on work status and details.

• Managers: Managers oversee work order initiation, prioritization, and approvals.

• Technicians: Technicians view and update work orders as they execute work.

• Inventory/Parts Teams: They ensure parts availability for work orders.

• Accounting: Accounting reconciles costs, labor, invoices for work orders.

Rather than constant back-and-forth phone calls and emails, the work order unites all teams on the same page!

They Optimize Operations

With formal work order procedures in place, you create structure and consistency for how work moves through your organization. This optimizes operations in several ways:

• Efficiency: Standard processes reduce delays from miscommunications and firefighting.

• Scalability: As your business grows, sound work order practices allow you to scale smoothly.

• Visibility: Dashboards and reporting provide real-time visibility into all in-progress work.

• Organization: Work orders avoid workflow chaos and random undocumented requests.

• Accountability: Individual ownership for work order steps creates accountability.

So in summary, work orders are vital for transforming random requests into well-documented, structured, efficient workflow processes that allow your business to operate smoothly as it scales!

Key Elements to Include in a Solid Work Order

Now that you understand why work orders are invaluable, let‘s look at the key elements that should be included on a complete work order.

While some details will vary depending on your industry and specific needs, most work orders include these core sections:

Header Information

The header captures key identifiers and dates for the work order:

• Work Order ID: Unique number or code to track the WO.

• Title: Brief descriptive title of work to be performed.

• Requestor: Name and contact details for person requesting work.

• Location: Where work will be carried out.

• Dates: Requested date, scheduled start/finish dates, actual completion dates.

Job Details

This section provides all specifications to understand the job fully:

• Asset: ID and details for equipment or item being worked on.

• Description: Overview of issue, goals, and desired outcome.

• Scope of Work: Specific tasks, steps, and deliverables involved.

• Parts/Materials: Any parts, tools, consumables, or supplies required.

• Safety: Cautions, risks requiring PPE, precautions needed.

Resources

The resources section identifies labor, expenses, and approvals:

• Assigned To: Worker(s) responsible for completing work.

• Labor Hours: Number of hours estimated and actual.

• Costs: Labor rates, material costs, total estimate, and actual expenses.

• Approvals: Sign-offs by requestor, management, accounting.

Additional Information

Extra fields might include priority level, checklists, causes, solutions, project codes, purchase orders, photos, and more.

So in summary, effective work orders encapsulate all the information needed to clearly define the job expectations, equip the assigned technician, estimate costs, obtain approvals, and provide detailed documentation.

Now let‘s examine some of the most common types of work orders used across industries.

Types of Work Orders and When They‘re Used

While all work orders share common elements, several different work order formats have emerged for specialized use cases:

Corrective Maintenance

Corrective maintenance addresses unexpected equipment failures that require urgent, unplanned repair work to restore normal operations.

These break-fix work orders diagnose causes and either repair or replace components. Corrective maintenance minimizes downtime but can be costly if assets break often.

Preventive Maintenance

Preventive maintenance aims to avoid failures proactively through scheduled work based on predefined time or usage intervals.

For example, machinery may require cleaning, lubrication, inspections, and certain parts replaced every X hours of runtime. Preventive maintenance work orders authorize this routine care to maintain reliability.

Facilities Maintenance

Facilities maintenance work orders support the upkeep of buildings, grounds, infrastructure. This involves HVAC, electrical, plumbing, painting, landscaping, renovations, and general repairs.

Facilities maintenance aims to provide safe, comfortable, and functional workspaces. Work orders ensure documentation and coordination across various trades involved.

Inspection

Inspection work orders authorize a qualified professional to thoroughly inspect equipment, facilities, materials, or work results to identify any deficiencies or problems.

Inspections assess conformance to specifications, policies, building codes, safety standards, and regulations. The work order provides documentation of any issues discovered.

Project/Retrofit

Project or retrofit work orders support one-time, large-scale jobs required to modify, upgrade, or expand equipment and facilities.

Examples include plant expansions, production line upgrades, IT system implementations, or extensive renovations. Detailed work orders are critical for large complex projects.

Emergency

Emergency work orders document unforeseen events requiring immediate work to avoid injury, significant asset damage, or major business disruption.

They receive top priority over other work and remain flexible as the full scope often can‘t be defined upfront before diagnostics.

Customer Support

Customer support work orders capture service requests from external clients related to your products or services. Examples include computer help desk tickets, appliance repair calls, or tool maintenance for customers.

So in summary, various work order formats have been optimized for specialized use cases and industries. But they all serve the core goals of formally requesting work, providing instruction, and documenting the process.

Now let‘s talk about why you should be leveraging work orders in your own business.

Top 8 Benefits of Work Orders for Your Business

Here are some of the biggest reasons to start utilizing work orders if you don‘t already:

1. Provides Structure for Efficient Operations

Standardized work order procedures establish a structured workflow for smoothly processing jobs from initial request to final completion. This prevents undocumented, chaotic work and drives operational efficiency.

2. Improves Documentation and Accountability

Work orders result in complete documentation including who did what work, when, where, time spent, materials used, and costs. This improves accountability as the documentation trail shows the full history.

3. Enables Cost Analysis and Optimization

The detailed expense data in work orders facilitates analysis of labor costs, material costs, job costs by asset, frequency, etc. This allows you to optimize spending and prevent overpaying.

4. Supports Compliance and Risk Mitigation

Comprehensive documentation from work orders provides critical audit trails for proof of regulatory compliance, contract fulfillment, policy adherence, and liability protection.

5. Allows Tracking Key Performance Metrics

Work orders contain data points for measuring technician productivity, work backlogs, asset downtime, repair trends, parts usage, and other key performance metrics to reveal improvement opportunities.

6. Improves Asset Maintenance and Reliability

Work order history helps identify recurring repair issues so you can pinpoint problematic assets and implement preventive maintenance programs to improve reliability.

7. Enables Better Budgeting and Cost Control

Historical job cost data from work orders allows you to more accurately budget and estimate costs for future maintenance work and projects.

8. Provides Communication and Collaboration Tool

Work orders enable different teams like requestors, planners, technicians, inventory staff, and management to collaborate efficiently on jobs.

So in summary, implementing consistent work order practices provides tremendous benefits across your organization – it‘s well worth the effort!

Now let‘s examine where you can find templates to create work orders for your own business.

Top 6 Work Order Template Resources

Instead of building work orders from scratch, most businesses start from pre-made work order templates and customize them to match their needs.

Here are some excellent resources to find templates for nearly any industry:

1. JotForm

JotForm offers hundreds of free, professionally designed work order templates for every industry including:

• Facilities – HVAC, Electrical, Plumbing, Janitorial
• Construction – Maintenance, Retrofit, Emergency
• Manufacturing – Equipment Repair, Inspection
• Transportation – Vehicle Service, Fleet Maintenance
• Restaurants – Appliance Repair, Pest Control
• And many more!

The templates are fully customizable and downloadable in Word or PDF formats. JotForm also provides an online form builder for creating digital work order forms.

2. TemplateLab

TemplateLab has over 50 high-quality, free work order templates covering:

• General Maintenance
• Help Desk/IT Support
• Manufacturing
• Construction
• Automotive
• Appliance Repair
• Equipment Inspection
• Pest Control

Templates can be easily edited in Word, Excel, or other document apps. TemplateLab is a great source for printable work order forms.

3. Smartsheet

Smartsheet offers a large library of work order templates designed specifically for their work order management software. However, the Word, Excel, and PDF templates are 100% customizable for use in any system or business.

They provide industry-specific templates for:

• Construction
• Electrical
• Plumbing
• HVAC
• General Contracting
• Equipment Repair
• Many more

4. WorkOrderPlus

WorkOrderPlus specializes in asset maintenance software. Although their robust work order templates are made for their platform, anyone can download the Word and Excel files for free and customize as needed.

Their large template library covers every maintenance need including reactive, preventive, inspection, installation, project, and predictive work orders.

5. Bitrix24

Bitrix24 provides free work order templates designed specifically for use in their Bitrix24 work order management app.

Their Excel-based templates support:

• Facility Management
• Equipment Repair
• IT Helpdesk
• Vehicle Repair
• General Maintenance

While built for Bitrix24, you can adapt the templates easily for any work order system.

6. SwiftCloud

SwiftCloud focuses on work order solutions for field service businesses. They offer a nice selection of free work order templates optimized for:

• HVAC
• Electrical
• Plumbing
• Telecom
• Appliance Repair
• And more!

Their Word and Excel templates include dispatch forms, invoice forms, and mobile work order templates.

So in summary, leverage pre-built templates as a starting point, and customize them to match your industry, work types, assets, parts inventory, and specific work order needs. Smart use of templates can accelerate your work order process implementation significantly!

Expert Tips for Work Order Success

As a work order expert, I wanted to share some pro tips to help you maximize success as you build out your work order process:

Start Simple then Expand

It‘s easy to get carried away trying to build complex work order forms right out of the gate. Start simple – it‘s better to roll out basic forms and evolve them over time.

Focus on Key Data First

Identify the 5-10 most important data fields for your initial templates rather than trying to capture everything upfront. You can always add fields later.

Use Templates as Guides

Don‘t just copy templates verbatim! Templates provide a solid starting structure, but you‘ll need to adapt them to your specific assets, work, parts, etc.

Standardize Where Possible

Use the same codes, formats, and fields across work order templates where possible for consistency and reporting.

Involve Technicians Early

Get feedback from technicians and team members who will use the work orders daily during your template design process. They offer valuable insights!

Try Automated Work Orders

Automating work order generation for tasks like PM schedules and routine maintenance can save massive time.

Go Mobile

Mobile access to work orders enables technicians to update work in real-time from the job site for maximum efficiency.

Implementation Takes Time

Don‘t get discouraged if adoption is slow at first! Work order process transformation takes training, tweaking, and time to stick.

Key Takeaways on Work Orders

We‘ve covered a ton of ground here together! Let‘s recap the key takeaways:

• Work orders are critical to formally request work, provide instructions, and document jobs from start to finish.

• Standard elements like assets, descriptions, parts lists, approvals, dates, and costs should be included.

• Different work order types have emerged for maintenance, projects, facilities, inspections, and customer service.

• Consistent work order processes provide huge benefits for operations, documentation, compliance, cost optimization, and productivity.

• Leverage pre-built templates but customize them to match your specific work and assets.

• Start simple and focus on continuously improving your work orders over time.

So in summary, work orders may seem mundane, but they truly provide the foundation for efficient, smooth, well-documented business operations. Implementing a solid work order process can transform the way your business functions!

I hope this guide provided you with everything you need to start leveraging work orders effectively within your organization. Let me know if you have any other questions!