Assets and work orders

  • 15 minutes

This unit describes assets and work orders in Asset Management. Assets and work orders, along with functional locations, are central components of Asset Management.

Assets

The following list describes assets:

  • An asset is a machine or machine part that requires continuous maintenance and service.
  • Assets can be organized in a hierarchical structure or they can be organized by functional locations.
  • Maintenance jobs can be planned at all levels in the asset structure.
  • Each asset has product information, specifications, and maintenance plans, which are documented in detail in Asset Management.

The following illustration shows an overview of an asset and the information and job types that are associated with it. The red text in the figure highlights an example asset to show inheritance and dependencies.

Diagram of an overview of asset maintenance jobs.

Work orders

A work order is a task or a job that can be scheduled or assigned on an asset.

For example, a work order can be used to schedule maintenance on a machine. Additionally, a work order can be created for inspections, corrective maintenance, and preventative maintenance.

  • Every work order has a work order type, such as preventive maintenance, corrective maintenance, or inspection.
  • A work order can contain one or more work order jobs.
  • Every work order job defines what must be performed on an asset and a related job type. Examples of related job types include safety inspections and service upon reaching specific mileage or hours in service.
  • A work order can include work order jobs for multiple assets.
  • A work order can be related to another work order and job types can contain succeeding jobs that create a work order. Generally, no dependencies exist between work orders. The work order lifecycle states can be changed and scheduled independently of each other.
  • Work orders can be created in various ways, including manually.

The following illustration shows an overview of the key data and process in a work order.

Diagram of an overview of key data and process in a work order.

The following illustration provides a review of creating work orders, whether the work order is created manually or automatically. Generally, maintenance requests are established for corrective or fault maintenance that is required due to equipment failure. Maintenance plans and rounds are used for preventative and reactive maintenance, such as when you take your car to a repair shop for preventative maintenance. To keep your car running smoothly, you take it in for regular oil changes, whereas corrective maintenance requires you to repair your tire when it has gone flat.

Diagram with corrective, and preventive and reactive maintenance requests.

Work order flow

Work orders can be created automatically or manually. The following scenarios describe how you can create an automatic or manual work order.

  • Automatic work order creation:
    • You can have work orders automatically created by setting maintenance sequences and maintenance rounds to Auto create.
    • By creating maintenance schedules based on maintenance sequences, requests, or maintenance rounds, work orders can be automatically created.
  • Manual work order creation:
    • Create a manual work order on the All work orders page.
    • Create a related work order.
    • Use the All requests list page.

The following illustration provides a high-level review of a work order process flow.

Diagram of a high level work order process flow.

After the work order is created, the process flow of the work order would continue as follows:

  • Verify work order – If necessary, edit or update information that is related to the work order or asset. These updates can include:
    • Forecasts
    • Tools
    • Notes
    • Faults
  • Schedule work order – Three resource types are available in work order scheduling:
    • Human resources
    • Machines
    • Tools
  • Update lifecycle state – A Scheduled status means that resource planning has been completed. The In process state means that a maintenance job is ready to be carried out.
  • Complete maintenance job – This process flow can be a checklist, production stop, condition assessment, or faults.
  • Post journals – The consumption in the form of hours or items.
  • Close work order – When the work order lifecycle state has the status of Ended, the maintenance job is complete, and the journals are posted. When the work order lifecycle state has the status of Finished, the work order is closed.

Bill for maintenance on customer-owned assets

The work order billing feature allows you to connect customers to their assets, view the assets a customer owns when creating a work order, create a parent project for each customer, and create an invoice proposal for the customer listing the expenses, hours, and fees. When this feature is enabled, the project contract that was created under the parent project is automatically transferred to the corresponding work order project.

When maintaining a customer owned asset, you must create a new project contract for the customer. This allows you to invoice one or more projects at the same time. Next, you must create a new parent project for the customer which will be used when work orders for the customer are created. In asset management, you must create a new work order type. Once you have completed the previous steps, you must link the customer account to the parent project, link the project group and type to the work order project, and link an asset to the customer ID.

When you have successfully linked the customer account, project group and type, and asset, you can create a new work order on the asset. Then you can review the work order and start to work on it. Once you have registered your time in the work order journals, you can create a new invoice proposal.

For more details on this process, go to Bill for maintenance on customer-owned assets.