Property owners will always have the requirement to manage and maintain their real estate, equipment, and spare parts inventory assets. Those assets can be at different locations within the same country or spread across other countries. Work order management is the proven process used to capture the completed activities needed to maintain those assets. This requires those entities to implement a formal work order management process to ensure the proper and timely processing of scheduled and non-scheduled work orders needed to maintain their real estate and equipment assets.
In the previous article titled “The Need for Property Owner to Have A Real-Time Single Version of the Truth of the Particulars and Status of All Assets they Own and Control,” we have detailed how the PMWeb Asset Management module will be used to capture the details of all assets owned or controlled by the property owner. In this article, the PMWeb Work Order module will be used to create, track, and complete all work orders, including capturing details on the work order scope of work, needed labor resources, parts, miscellaneous costs, condition tracking, and all required documentation. In addition to using the PMWeb work order module to create work orders, PMWeb allows generating work orders from each real estate and equipment asset module, from the components and subcomponents of each equipment asset, and work requests.
Creating the Work Order
Work order management begins with the creation of work orders. It can be defined as an order for maintenance services to be performed, either received as a work request from someone from within the property owner or as a regularly scheduled job to maintain equipment, buildings, grounds, or vehicles. For a facility manager, these work orders come from a request for a lighting change to a significant roof repair.
PMWeb, work order module, allows creating and capturing all needed details for each work order, including the work order number, title, category, progress status, detailed scope of work, name, and contact details for the individual who the work order need to be coordinated with, WBS level if it is used, GIS location of the work order, work order bar code and the real estate and equipment assets associated with the work order. Additional user-defined fields can also be created and added under the specification tab, and other text notes can be added under the notes tab.
PMWeb allows creating predefined checklists for the tasks that need to be performed for each type of work order. The checklists’ content represents the property owner’s knowledge in maintaining those real estate and equipment assets and what needs to be performed for each type of work order. The checklist can also be viewed as an audit checklist to ensure that all required tasks have been completed. The checklist tab will drag and drop the relevant checklist items for the created work order. The checklist will include details of the tasks to be performed, category, needed resources, skill, and notes. Of course, there is always the option to add the checklist items directly for the work order.
In addition, the PMWeb work order module allows capturing details on the past service reading that the linked asset or any of its components or subcomponents had. This will be used to capture the details of the previous asset reading like hours used and current reading to determine the current usage, services performed, condition, condition data, and notes.
PMWeb work order module also allows adding the cost estimate to perform the work order. There are different options to create the cost estimate, which include adding predefined work items from the PMWeb cost database, add resources, labor, and non-labor, from the PMWeb resources directory for which each has a unit rate, add estimate details directly without using PMWeb cost database, paste from MS Excel or add an estimate from a predefined cost assembly. Cost assemblies represent the knowledge that the property owners has acquired and developed in maintaining their real estate and equipment assets, for which there is a clear understanding of the associated costs and level of effort needed to execute the work order.
The estimated cost will provide the property owner with an overall estimate that can be used when budgeting the execution of those work orders. PMWeb enables the property owner to assign the needed resources, labor and non-labor, and material required for the work order. The resources will be selected from the PMWeb resources repository modules. For the material, those can be either selected from the PMWeb cost database used in the cost estimate or chosen from the material and spare part inventory. The total cost tab will summarize the cost of those resources and materials assigned to the work order.
Like all other PMWeb modules, the work order module’s attachment tab will be used to attach all supportive documents needed for the work order. Those could include pictures of the assets, specifications, drawings, catalogs, BIM models, among others. PMWeb allows selecting documents in PDF and Picture file format as the file images to be displayed on the work order module. Also, the attachment tab will be used to link other PMWeb records like work permits, gate passes, meeting minutes, among others, and imported MS Outlook emails to the work order.
To formalize the creation and approval of work orders, PMWeb allows assigning a workflow for the work order module to detail the needed steps to be performed and their sequence. Like all other workflows created in PMWeb, the workflow could include authority approval levels to ensure that the work order is reviewed and approved by the authorized individuals. For ad-hoc communication of the work order, the PMWeb notification option can be used to email the work order to other individuals, whether they were PMWeb users or not.
Work Order Mobile Accessibility
Being a zero footprint application, PMWeb allows accessing the work order module from any browser, including those of mobile smart devices like, for example, rugged iPad and Android devices. This will provide the users with all PMWeb Work Order screens and functions detailed above. Accessing PMWeb from a smartphone device allows the user to take pictures and videos associated with the work order and attach them. Also, the “Speech to Text” option allows completing text fields by talking to the smartphone device.
In addition, PMWeb mobile app allows accessing the work order module but with the information being limited to the work order details, resources, and materials assigned to the work order, and attached documents and records. PMWeb mobile app allows working offline for which the data needs to be synchronized with the PMWeb central database when online connectivity is available again.In addition to the work order module, PMWeb mobile app also include modules for the list of real estate and equipment assets, companies, and work requests issued to generate work orders.
Setting Recurring Scheduled Work Orders
Using the same PMWeb work order module, the property owner can create recurring scheduled work orders. This requires developing the first work order to capture all needed details for the work order as detailed above and change the work order status to approved. Using the preventive tab, the user needs to select the preventative work order frequency, which could be once, daily, weekly, monthly, or at selected intervals. This will be followed by the time when the work order to be performed, which day of the week, and until when this will end. When all those values are given, the user will select the generate work orders command to have all these preventive work orders automatically generated and listed as Linked Work Orders. This will enable the property owner to execute those work orders on their planned dates.
Work Orders Dispatch Board
PMWeb allows creating an unlimited number of dispatch boards for which they will include the details of resources needed to execute the work orders. The dispatch board timeline display can be per day, per week, and month. To populate the dashboard with work orders, the user needs to drag and drop open work orders into the selected date if the display was weekly or monthly or by time in case the dispatch board timeline display was per day.
Tracking Work Orders
Suppose the location field in a work order was populated with the location of the work order. In that case, the property owner can visualize all work orders created for all real estate and equipment assets at any real estate location captured and managed in PMWeb. This list of work orders enable the user to drill down to the selected work order and view the complete details of this specific work order.
Work Requests by End Users
As detailed above, PMWeb allows creating work orders directly from the work order module and generating work orders from real estate or equipment assets and or from equipment components or subcomponents. In addition, PMWeb allows generating work orders from work requests, usually submitted by the assets end users and who have access to PMWeb. Also, work requests can be initiated from PMWeb mobile app.
Monitoring, Evaluating and Reporting the Status of Work Orders
With PMWeb report writer, the property owner can generate different reports to monitor, evaluate and report on the status of work orders and the captured details in those work orders. For example, the property owner can generate a report that will provide details of the real estate asset along with the status of work orders created on this real estate and equipment assets that are located within the real estate asset.
