Work orders (WOs) are essential to manufacturing and maintenance operations. They outline tasks, assign responsibility, specify required tools and define expected completion times.
In practice, work orders are the foundation of maintenance planning, scheduling, documentation and compliance. The challenge? Not all maintenance tasks are the same, and each requires a specific WO type. For example, preventive maintenance is not the same as emergency repairs, which in turn are different from necessary safety work.
Using the correct type of work order helps ensure the correct prioritization of tasks, the effective allocation of resources and the accurate tracking of work completed. Misclassification, meanwhile, can lead to unexpected delays, unnecessary costs and inaccurate data for future maintenance planning.
Let’s explore 9 common types of work orders, when they should be used and why they matter for uptime and reliability.
9 common maintenance work orders
While there’s no limit to the number and type of work orders you can create, 9 types are common. They include:
1. Preventive maintenance (PM) work orders
Preventive maintenance work orders are issued at regular intervals—based on time or equipment usage. For example, a manufacturing company might issue a PM order on the first of every month or after a piece of production line machinery has run for a set number of hours.
The first approach is useful for production lines that depend on consistent output volumes, while the second is more effective for companies with variable production demand.
Use cases for PM work orders: Common use cases for preventive maintenance work orders include parts lubrication, inspections, adjustments, cleaning and parts replacement.
Benefits of preventive maintenance work orders: The primary purpose of PM work orders is to prevent failures by addressing issues before they escalate. A leaky valve repaired before it gives way can save companies time, effort and money.
Preventive maintenance work orders also support compliance requirements and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) guidelines, which are necessary for both regulatory alignment and warranty support.
2. Corrective maintenance work orders
One of the most common types of industrial maintenance WOs, corrective maintenance work orders are created after maintenance teams identify an issue during a PM work order or condition inspection.
It’s worth noting that corrective maintenance WOs differ from reactive or emergency work orders. This is because corrective orders are created in response to identified repair or maintenance tasks that could escalate to become emergencies. Reactive WOs, meanwhile, are only issued after the emergency occurs.
Use cases for corrective maintenance work orders: Corrective maintenance work orders are used to address a fault or emerging issues that require attention but are not an emergency.
Benefits of corrective maintenance work orders: Because these work orders occur in response to PM orders, they can often be scheduled. This allows maintenance management teams time to order and prepare parts, determine the ideal time to take systems offline for repair and ensure they have the resources and staff on hand to address the issue.
3. Reactive (emergency) work orders
Reactive work orders are issued when equipment fails unexpectedly. While no maintenance program can prevent every failure, relying too heavily on reactive orders can lead to increased costs, safety risks and extended equipment downtime.
Use cases for reactive maintenance work orders: Reactive work orders are created when machinery unexpectedly breaks down or creates operational safety hazards. These orders require immediate attention and disrupt scheduled work, often leading to extended downtime.
How to minimize the use of reactive work orders: The fewer emergency work orders needed, the better. Building strong PM and PdM processes can help companies identify and resolve issues before they become production line problems.
4. Predictive maintenance (PdM) work orders
PdM work orders are created when connected sensors, IIoT devices or diagnostic tests indicate deterioration of equipment function or speed.
Use cases for PdM work orders: Predictive maintenance WOs are issued in response to data collected from condition-based monitoring tools. For example, if sensors detect issues with vibration, lubrication, temperature or sound, PdMs are automatically created.
Benefits of PdM work orders: Predictive maintenance work orders allow companies to act before failures occur, but without over-maintaining assets. Consider a company that takes a critical packaging machine offline once each month for maintenance activities. While this ensures overall uptime, it does disrupt production processes. Preventive maintenance analysis, meanwhile, indicates that the machine only requires this maintenance once every two months. The result is lower spending and resource use for the same result.
In practice, PdM orders can reduce unnecessary preventive maintenance tasks and improve asset lifecycle planning. The caveat? Connection with work order management software to ensure these WOs are properly documented and tracked.
5. Inspection work orders
Inspection work orders are typically issued as part of scheduled maintenance processes or to meet regulatory requirements. For example, they may be created for routine visual checks, compliance inspections, safety assessments or operational audits.
Use cases for inspection work orders: Inspection WOs often occur in response to regulatory audit or evaluation requirements, such as those set out by OSHA or the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). Companies may also use inspection work orders to evaluate environmental, social and governance (ESG) objectives.
Benefits of inspection work orders: Along with ensuring regulatory compliance, inspection work orders may also generate corrective or reactive work orders that address critical issues.
6. Safety work orders
Safety work orders are issued to address hazards such as guard or railing failures, trip hazards, ventilation issues and necessary machine risk reductions.
Use cases for safety work orders: Safety WOs typically occur in response to identified safety issues but may be issued proactively if staff notice the start of safety issues, such as leaky pipes or poor air quality. Safety work orders are often tied to environmental, health and safety (EHS) systems.
Benefits of safety work orders: Safety work orders are highly prioritized because they impact worker well-being. Rapid response to safety issues both protects workers and reduces the risk of regulatory non-compliance.
7. Calibration work orders
Calibration work orders ensure that gauges, tools and instruments are operating within required tolerances.
Use cases for calibration work orders: Scheduled calibration work orders are often paired with PM work order forms as part of regular maintenance processes. While all equipment requires regular calibration, industries such as pharmaceuticals, food and beverage, aerospace, automotive and electronics manufacturing have strict machine calibration protocols to ensure worker, consumer and user safety.
Benefits of calibration work orders: Calibration work orders are often used as part of certification, documentation and traceability requirements, making them a valuable component of regulatory compliance.
8. Facility maintenance work orders
Facility maintenance work orders focus on operational environments rather than equipment. These work orders are often managed by facilities teams but may also integrate with plant maintenance.
Use cases for facility maintenance work orders: Facility maintenance WOs cover tasks such as HVAC repairs, lighting, plumbing, structural work, groundskeeping and electrical systems.
Benefits of facility maintenance work orders: The regular use of facility maintenance work orders helps operational environments that support production goals and keep staff safe.
9. Project and capital work orders
Project and capital work orders are often tagged as CapEx-related tasks because they require both staff and spending to accomplish large-scale goals.
Use cases for project and capital work orders: Project and capital WOs are used for large, multistep initiatives such as equipment installations, system upgrades or layout redesigns.
Key considerations for project and capital work orders: The scale of project and capital work orders means they need detailed budgets, clear timelines and cross-functional collaboration to deliver value and meet expectations.
Optimizing work order processes
Classifying work orders correctly delivers multiple benefits for manufacturers, including:
- Improved scheduling accuracy and resource planning
- Correct priority levels for maintenance tasks
- Increased compliance and audit readiness
- Enhanced data integrity for reliability metrics such as mean time between failures (MTBF) and mean time to repair (MTTR)
- Pattern identification to help guide PM and PdM task priority and scheduling
Work orders are the foundation of effective maintenance and lay the groundwork for improved inventory management, enhanced cost control and reduced downtime. Practical benefits are only possible, however, if maintenance managers select the right type of work order for the task at hand.
This starts with an understanding of the most common work order types and how they map to common maintenance processes. Next is collecting production environment data to track key trends and prioritize predictive and preventive maintenance operations. Finally, companies need to integrate work order processes with solutions such as computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) and enterprise resource planning (ERP), and other work order software to ensure tasks are tracked, documented and analyzed to help optimize maintenance operations.
Ready to streamline your work order management processes? Discover how ATS solutions reduce downtime and improve reliability. Let’s talk.
