What is a work order?

The authorised unit of maintenance work — the heartbeat of the whole system.

A work order is the formal record authorising a job: what asset, what work, who, when, which parts, what priority. It moves through states — requested, approved, planned, assigned, in progress, complete — and its closure writes the asset's history.

Everything hangs off the work order: labour cost, parts consumption, downtime attribution, failure history, even the purchase requisition for a missing part. If it isn't on a work order, it didn't happen — and it can't be measured.

• Why it matters