Any work order system must have several types of work orders. The most common are:
Planned and scheduled Emergency
Standing or blanket Shutdown or outage
Planned and Scheduled Work Orders
Planned and scheduled work orders have already been briefly de-scribed. They are the work orders for which a request is made, a planner screens, resources are planned, and the work is scheduled. Work informa-tion is then entered in the compleinforma-tion process and the work order is filed.
This type of work order, which is the most common, will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 6, the planning and scheduling chapter.
Standing or Blanket Work Orders
Figure 5-3 lists the purposes of standing or blanket work orders.
These work orders are generally written for 5- to 30-minute quick jobs, such as resetting a circuit breaker or making a quick adjustment. Writing a work order for each of these jobs would bury maintenance in a mountain of detail that could not be compiled effectively into meaningful reports.
Standing work orders are written against an equipment charge or an ac-counting number. Whenever a small job is performed, it is charged to the work order number. The work order itself is not closed out, but remains open for a time period preset by management. It is then closed and posted to history and a new standing work order is opened.
One problem with standing work orders is people sometimes feel as if they are used like credit cards, charging time for the craftsmen that is not otherwise accounted for. Occasionally such charges are made, but when
STANDING OR BLANKET WORK ORDERS
• Repetitive small jobs where the cost of processing the documentation exceeds thecost of performing the work.
• Fixed or routine assignments where it is unnecssary to write a work order each time it is performed
.
WORK ORDER OBJECTIVES
• A method for requesting, assigning and following up work
• A method of transmitting job instructions
• A method for estimating and accumulating maintenance costs
• A method for collecting the data necessary for producing management reports
the charges are closed out on the work order, offenders can be spotted.
Computerized systems make this detection much easier because they can quickly compile a list of all personnel who have charged time to a work or-der. Some of the more sophisticated systems can even display the percent-age of time any craftwork charges to a type of work order. If offenders are suspected, it is easy to find them. However, this example is usually the ex-ception, not the rule. Most employees do not abuse a standing work order system.
Emergency Work Orders
Emergency, reactive, or breakdown work orders are generally written after the job is performed. Breakdowns require quick action. In most cases, there is not enough time to go through the usual planning and scheduling of the work order. The craft technician, supervisor, or production supervisor generally makes out the emergency work order after the job is completed.
The format of the emergency work order is similar to the work request in that only the brief, necessary information is required. When the work order is posted to the equipment history, it should be marked as an emergency work order, allowing the analysis of the emergency work orders by:
• Equipment ID • Department
• Equipment type • Requestor
Analyzing emergency work patterns can help identify certain trends that can be invaluable when planning maintenance activities. The typical flow of a trouble call or emergency work order is pictured in Figure 5-4.
The need for a central call-in point for work requests is to prevent
over-lapping assignments. If requests are taken at different points, several tech-nicians may be dispatched to the same job.
When technicians or supervisors arrive at the job site, they may realize that the job is more involved than the call may have indicated. If the work
REACTIVE WORK FLOW
• Trouble call is received by a central dispatch point — May be the maintenance supervisor
• The call is dispatched to the maintenance supervisor
• If the repair is going to be over a certain time or cost limit, the supervisor and planner analyze the repair
• When the logistics are arranged, the repair is performed
required is going to exceed a certain cost or time limit, the job is routed back to the planner for analysis. If the work is going to be easier to coordi-nate and plan by scheduling, the planner takes control of the work order, scheduling it as soon as the material and labor resources are available. This approach allows for cost effective maintenance activities, instead of wast-ing labor productivity waitwast-ing to do a job.
Shutdown or Outage Work Orders
Shutdown or outage work orders are for work that is going to be per-formed as a project or during a time when the equipment is shut down for an extended period. These jobs, which are marked as outage or shutdowns, should not appear in the regular craft backlog. This work is still planned, insuring that the maintenance resource requirements are known and ready before the shutdown or outage begins. Such planning prevents delays and maximizes the productivity of all employees. In many cases, the work or-der information is entered into project management software to run a com-plete project schedule.
Computerized Maintenance Management Software (CMMS) does not include enough features of project management software to make it an ac-ceptable scheduling alternative. Some vendors have included interfaces to project management systems, which tends to correct this deficiency.