What is Work Order?

A work order is a formal instruction to carry out a specific maintenance or repair task. It captures what needs doing, on which asset, who is assigned, the priority, any spare parts required, and a place to record the time and cost once the job is complete. Work orders may be raised reactively when something breaks, or generated automatically from a preventive-maintenance schedule.

Why it matters: the work order authorises the work, gives the technician clear instructions, and creates a permanent record of what was done, by whom, and at what cost. Over time these records build an asset’s service history and feed reliability metrics like MTBF and cost analysis. In a combined helpdesk and asset tool, a work order behaves much like a ticket but is tied to a specific piece of equipment and often draws parts from spare-parts inventory.