8 Reasons to Keep Thorough Track of Work Orders
Let’s say your company has owned or leased real estate assets that are geographically dispersed. All your buildings require different degrees of maintenance. How, if at all, is that maintenance tracked and managed? A facility management best practice is to track work orders in a Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) and here’s why.
Full Visibility: The most obvious and predominant reason to track work orders is the visibility you gain by tracking details of work in one location. By maintaining an organized system of details about each work order, you can easily stay informed about completion status, actionable items, and other important data.
Accountability: Work order tasks can be assigned and tracked from start to finish, holding contractors and facility team members accountable for their assigned tasks.
Key Performance Metrics: By tracking detailed information about work orders you can easily analyze key performance metrics about facility and contractor performance. Example metrics would be contractor arrival time, # of work orders completed each week/month/year, and cost per trade category.
Increased Facility Team Performance: A well-organized work order system is a centralized tool for the facility team to use as they communicate and coordinate with internal and external stakeholders.
Confident Reporting: As an extension of visibility, customized reports can be pulled quickly and with confidence that they are accurate and up to date.
Informed Decision Making: Having full visibility, confident reporting, and key performance metrics readily available helps staff and management make informed decisions in the short and long term.
Improved Budgeting and Capital Planning: Work order data can be analyzed by trade, timeline, and spend. Historical data is useful to have when preparing budgets and planning for capital improvements.
Cost savings: Having and maintaining a work order system makes keeps your facility department more organized, which saves time and ultimately saves money. The team will be able to make better decisions faster and communicate with greater accuracy.
There are countless technology-based platforms available to track work orders and other facility data. The important first step is getting the system in place and customized to your unique business needs. Be sure to provide staff with thorough training. After all, these systems are only as good as the users and their ability to maintain an accurate and updated system of data.
Written By: Mariel Nowack, ONE SOURCE Companies
