Work Order Management: Workflow Management

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Key Questions

The following key questions are answered in this module:

What is workflow management?
In any organization where it is necessary to maintain electro-mechanical equipment, or buildings and their associated systems. It is also necessary to carefully plan preventive, corrective and reactive maintenance activities that need to take place. This is known as workflow management.

What are the benefits of incorporating workflow management?
Utilizing workflow management within a Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS), will result in higher department efficiency and better financial management by: managing spare parts, assigning technicians to jobs in which they are familiar or have been properly trained, correctly prioritizing work, and applying "lessons learned" from previous maintenance activities.

What is predictive maintenance?
Predictive maintenance is a method of actually "predicting" when a component or piece of equipment will fail, based on the manufacturer's history, as well as the field history for that component or equipment. One of the primary benefits of a CMMS system is that it can automatically generate predictive and preventive work orders at any predetermined time interval.

What is a job plan?
A job plan is a checklist of maintenance tasks associated with a Preventive Maintenance ticket.

What is facility condition assessment?
Facility condition assessment refers to evaluating building equipment based on criteria including criticality, condition, life cycle and repair costs.

Sample Video Transcript

Below is a transcript of the video sample provided for this module:

Having the initial asset data input accurately into the CMMS is so important, as it is literally the foundation that the system will be built on. But it’s not all there is to do. When any maintenance, or just simple inspections are performed, it’s important to capture the specifics of what was repaired, serviced, inspected, tightened, replaced, etc. in the CMMS database. Naturally, the best person(s) to input this data is always the person or technician who actually performed the work, as they have first-hand, and therefore, the most accurate, knowledge of everything that occurred or was noticed during equipment servicing or inspection. Other entities such as suppliers or customers, may also provide useful information regarding asset performance or component upgrades, which should also be included in the CMMS database. Particularly concerning component upgrades, it’s necessary to have the latest ordering information in the database, since that is the information normally used to order and/or re-order any parts needed to support building or equipment operation. Utilizing a dispatch matrix is helpful for assigning personnel to qualified PM maintenance and repair activities. Technicians’ skillsets can be listed in the CMMS, so that the most qualified available technician is dispatched to perform a specific task, or to work on a particular asset. Once a dispatch matrix is in place, your organization can implement level loading. PM Maintenance and repair work can be evenly distributed to qualified technicians over the course of the year. This distributed work allows management to better plan cash flow, resource allocation, ordering of repair parts, and capital spending, while also minimizing “surprises” like critical equipment breakdowns.