The 15 best work order reports and how to use them to improve your maintenance strategy

The average maintenance team completes hundreds of work orders every year. That means thousands of fields are filled out, each one building the store of data you have about your machines and your operations. 

Actually getting that data consistently is not always easy, but that’s a topic for another article. Even if you’re capturing a few pieces of reliable information on every work order, you’re likely swimming in a sea of useful data you can use to improve everything from uptime to team efficiency.

This article explores what you can do with all the data in your work orders, the reports you can run, the dashboards you can set up, and how to translate insights into action.

Key takeaways

• Work order reports are most useful when they connect maintenance activity to outcomes like downtime, cost, risk, capacity, and compliance.
• Segmentation is what turns basic work order data into action, especially when you compare reports by asset, facility, maintenance type, priority, shift, and failure mode.
• The best reports help teams decide where to focus next, whether that means improving PMs, updating procedures, stocking parts, cross-training technicians, or addressing bad actors.

15 work order reports to help you improve your maintenance strategy

1. Mean time to repair (MTTR)

What is it

Mean time to repair is the average time it takes to get an asset back to full availability and functionality after a failure or planned stoppage. For example, let’s say a packaging manufacturer has five case packers at its facility. The five machines had a total of 30 downtime incidents in the year, totalling 75 hours. That means that the MTTR is 2.5 hours per incident.

MTTR can be tracked by:

• Facility
• Asset
• Asset group
• Shift
• Maintenance type
• Failure mode
• Priority

How to track it with work orders

The most basic form of MTTR tracking uses a single field technicians fill out on a work order with the time it took to complete the job. 

You can get more detailed information by using maintenance software that allows frontline staff to start and stop a timer to track the exact time a repair takes, and to account for any non-repair activities, like waiting for a part to arrive. If you want to get even more granular, you can separate each phase of repair into time increments to understand where bottlenecks, delays, and challenges happen.

You can also use other fields to layer in segmentation of your data, like failure modes or maintenance type. 

How to use the insights

The best way to use MTTR data is to understand what processes can be more efficient and how to make them more efficient. For example, to reduce unplanned downtime, you might look at MTTR for emergency work orders on production critical assets. Talk to the technicians responsible for this work and understand where the biggest bottlenecks or obstacles are, then address them. 

For example, if a common stumbling block is accessing past work orders to understand previous failures and troubleshooting measures, you can digitize these records and make them available by scanning a QR code on the asset. Making several of these small adjustments can significantly reduce downtime over the course of a year.

2. Failure modes and failure categories

What is it

Failure modes are the specific ways an asset fails. Failure categories are broader groupings that help you organize those failures for reporting.

For example, a variable speed conveyor might stop because its motor overheated. The failure mode might be “motor overheating,” while the failure category might be “electrical,” “mechanical,” or “lubrication,” depending on how your team structures its data. Failure modes and categories can be tracked by:

• Facility
• Asset/asset group
• Maintenance type
• Downtime impact

How to track it with work orders

The easiest way to track failure modes is to add required fields to work orders technicians use to select the failure category and failure mode. Ideally, the field is a pre-set, drop-down list of failure modes and categories. Keep the list as concise as possible. If technicians have to choose from 75 options, the data will get messy fast. Start with a short set of failure categories, like:

• Mechanical
• Electrical
• Hydraulic
• Operator error
• Wear and tear
• Safety issue

Add more specific failure modes (or failures codes) under each category. For example, under “mechanical,” you might include misalignment, bearing failure, belt failure, or excessive vibration.

You can also use work order notes, photos, inspection checklists, and parts used to add more context so you can understand why something failed and what happened during the repair.

How to use the insights

Failure mode data helps you understand patterns in asset failure so you can solve the root problem.

For example, if a filler has 20 work orders in a quarter and 14 of those work orders are tied to the same failure mode, like sensor misalignment, you have a clear starting point. From there, you can look at the process around that failure. Does the PM need to be updated? Are technicians replacing the same part too often? Is the asset being cleaned, adjusted, or operated correctly?

Failure categories are especially useful for higher-level reporting. A maintenance manager might use them to see where the team is spending time. A plant manager might use them to understand which issues are affecting throughput. A multi-site leader might compare failure categories across facilities to find standardization opportunities.

3. Preventive maintenance compliance

What is it

Preventive maintenance compliance measures how often planned maintenance is completed on time. It helps you understand whether your team is keeping up with scheduled work or falling behind. For example, if your team had 100 PMs due in a month and completed 85 by their due date, your PM compliance rate is 85%. PM compliance can be tracked by:

• Facility
• Asset/asset group
• Technician
• Shift
• PM type
• Priority

How to track it with work orders

Tracking PM compliance comes down to three fields on a work order: Maintenance type, due date, and completion date. Make sure you tag all PMs as preventive maintenance and add a due date. Then, it’s up to the technician to mark the date it was completed or for your system to record when the work order was closed.

You can also track more detailed PM data by tagging PMs as completed late, missed, skipped, or deferred. If there is a reason for a work order to be skipped or delayed, you can add a reason code or tag on a work order as well. This is useful for reporting because a late PM caused by a technician shortage is different from a late PM caused by waiting on a part, being blocked by production, or unclear instructions.

How to use the insights

PM compliance data helps you understand whether your maintenance plan is realistic and whether critical assets are getting the attention they need.

For example, if compliance is low across all PMs, the team may be overloaded, understaffed, or working from a schedule that does not match production reality. If compliance is only low for certain assets, those PMs may need to be rescheduled, simplified, or prioritized differently.

You can also compare PM compliance against downtime and emergency work. If an asset has low PM compliance and high breakdown frequency, that is a clear place to investigate. The issue might be missed inspections, poor access to the equipment, unclear procedures, or PM tasks that are not actually preventing the most common failures.

4. Failed inspection rate

What is it

Failed inspection rate measures how often PM inspections find an issue that needs corrective action. It helps you understand whether your inspections are catching the right amount of risk.

For example, if your team completes 100 PM inspections on a group of pumps and 12 inspections fail, your failed inspection rate is 12%. Failed inspection rate can be tracked by:

• Facility
• Asset/asset group
• PM type
• Inspection item
• Failure type
• Technician
• Shift

How to track it with work orders

The easiest way to track failed inspection rate is to build pass/fail fields into PM work orders. Each inspection task should give technicians a clear way to record whether the asset passed, failed, or needs follow-up.

You can also add another layer of context to the data by ensuring that each failed inspection automatically turns into a corrective work order with failure codes, priorities, due dates, and other fields. You can then track how many failed PMs turned into corrective action and the completion rates on those corrective work orders.

How to use the insights

Failed inspection rate helps you understand whether your PM program is balanced. If the failed inspection rate is too high, the asset or process needs attention. Frequent failures could mean the asset is wearing faster than expected, the PM frequency is too low, operating conditions are creating extra stress, or the team is not addressing the root cause. In this case, the inspection is doing its job by finding risk, but the number of failures tells you there is a deeper problem to solve.

If the failed inspection rate is too low, the PM may not be worth the time it takes to complete. For example, if a weekly inspection almost never finds an issue, you may be able to adjust the frequency, narrow the checklist, or replace it with a meter-based trigger. You don’t need to eliminate the inspections, but you do need to find enough risk to justify the labor.

A healthy failed inspection rate sits somewhere in the middle. Inspections should catch issues before they turn into downtime, safety problems, or quality defects. But they should not fail so often that the team is constantly reacting to the same problems.

5. Document attach rate and empty notes field

What is it

Document attach rate measures how often supporting information is added to a work order. This can include photos, videos, inspection forms, meter readings, or other inputs that explain the work that was done and/or the asset’s condition. Empty notes field tracks how often technicians close work orders without adding written context.

Together, these metrics help you understand how much useful information is being captured during maintenance work. For example, if 100 corrective work orders are completed in a month and 35 include a photo, manual, or note, your attach rate is 35%.

Document attach rate and empty notes fields can be tracked by:

• Facility
• Asset/asset group
• Technician
• Maintenance type
• Shift

How to track it with work orders

The easiest way to track attach rate is to report on how many work orders include at least one piece of information. You can also run a report to find work orders with empty notes fields.

To improve consistency, you can make certain fields required before a work order can be closed. For example, you might require a photo for failed inspections or a note for emergency repairs. You can also set a minimum character count on notes fields so technicians add real context instead of typing one word to close the work order.

How to use the insights

Document attach rate helps you understand whether work orders are creating a useful maintenance history or just recording that work was completed.

If attach rates are low and notes fields are often empty, it may be harder to troubleshoot repeat failures, plan future work, train new technicians, or perform root cause analysis. It can also make it easier for teams to pencil whip PMs.

A high attach rate is especially useful for complex assets, repeat failures, safety-related work, and inspections that require proof. Photos can show asset condition. Notes can explain what the technician saw, what they tried, and what they recommend.

You can also compare documentation quality across teams, shifts, or work order types. If one shift consistently leaves notes blank, you may need clearer expectations or better closeout requirements. If emergency work orders lack photos or notes, you may be missing the context needed to prevent the same failure from happening again.

6. Maintenance types

What is it

This report is all about tracking the types of maintenance your team is scheduled for and completes. Maintenance type shows what kind of work your team is doing. This can include categories like preventive, corrective, emergency, and safety/compliance. There are a variety of ways you can track maintenance type, including total work orders, percentage of work scheduled and/or completed, and time spent on each type. 

For example, if your team completes 500 work orders in a month and 220 are preventive (44%), 180 are corrective (36%), 70 are emergency (14%), and 30 are safety or compliance-related (6%), you can start to see how much of your maintenance work is planned vs reactive.

Maintenance type can be tracked by:

• Facility
• Asset/asset group
• Shift
• Time spent
• Cost
• Downtime impact

How to track it with work orders

The easiest way to track maintenance type is to add a required maintenance type field or tag to every work order. Keep the top-level categories simple at first, like:

• Preventive/Inspection
• Corrective
• Emergency
• Safety/compliance

You can also create more specific subcategories if they help you understand the work better. For example, you might use tags like “corrective - electrical,” “PM - facilities,” or “emergency - production support.”

The goal is to make the categories specific enough to be useful, but not so detailed that technicians choose the wrong tag or avoid using them altogether. If you want more detail, layer in other fields like asset, priority, failure mode, time spent, and costs.

How to use the insights

Maintenance type data helps you understand how your team is spending its time, money, and resources. For example, if emergency work makes up a large percentage of work orders, your team may be stuck in reactive mode. You can look at which assets, lines, or shifts generate the most emergency work and decide where to improve PMs, training, parts availability, or operating procedures.

You can also use maintenance type data to plan resources. If corrective electrical work is increasing, you may need more electrical training, better troubleshooting documentation, or a dedicated resource for recurring issues. If facilities work is taking time away from production-critical assets, you may need to adjust staffing or priorities.

This report is also useful for leadership conversations. It shows whether the team is moving toward more planned work, where labor is consumed, and which jobs are driving cost, downtime, or risk.

7. Work order priority level

What is it

Work order priority reporting shows how work is distributed by urgency. It helps you understand how much of your team’s workload is tied to emergencies, high-priority jobs, routine work, or low-risk tasks. Priority levels usually include emergency, high, medium, and low.

For example, if 40% of your completed work orders are tagged as emergency or high priority, your team may be spending a large share of its time reacting to urgent issues instead of executing planned work. Priority can be tracked by:

• Facility
• Asset/asset group
• Maintenance type
• Shift
• Downtime impact
• Time spent
• Backlog age

How to track it with work orders

The easiest way to track work order priority is to make priority a required field when a work order is created. This gives planners, supervisors, and technicians a clear way to sort and schedule work.

You should also define what each priority level means. If one person uses “high” for anything important and another only uses it when production is at risk, the report will be hard to trust. A simple priority guide can help teams classify work consistently.

If a priority changes, that change should be recorded somewhere on the work order. For example, a medium-priority repair might become high priority if the issue gets worse or starts impacting production.

How to use the insights

Work order priority data helps you understand whether the team is spending time on the right work.

For example, if emergency and high-priority work make up a large share of completed work orders, the team may be operating in reactive mode. You can look at which assets, shifts, or maintenance types are driving the urgent work and decide where to adjust PMs, spare parts, staffing, or training.

Priority data also helps with backlog management. If low-priority work keeps getting pushed back, that may be fine. But if high-priority work is aging in the backlog, there may be a capacity, planning, or parts availability issue.

You can also compare priority against time spent, downtime, and cost. A high volume of emergency work on one asset may point to a reliability problem. A lot of low-priority work consuming labor may show where the team needs clearer scheduling rules. Over time, this report helps teams protect capacity for the work that has the biggest effect on uptime, safety, and production.

8. Expected vs. actual completion time

What is it

This report compares how long a work order was expected to take with how long it actually took. It helps you understand whether job estimates are accurate, if schedules are realistic, and if your team has enough capacity for planned work, backlog, and incoming requests.

For example, let’s say a bi-weekly PM is estimated to take 30 minutes, which means that over the course of a quarter, your teams should spend six hours on the task in total. However, when you look at this report, you see that the team spent 15 hours on it, or 250% more time than was allotted. There could be a lot of reasons why this is the case, including that the job takes longer than expected, fixes are being done and added to the work order instead of on a separate corrective work order, or instructions are too vague.

Expected vs. actual completion time can be tracked by:

• Asset/asset group
• Maintenance type
• Technician/shift
• Priority
• Delay reason

How to track it with work orders

The easiest way to track expected vs. actual completion time is to add two fields to every work order: estimated time to complete and actual completion time.

The estimated time usually comes from the manager, planner, or scheduler when the work order is created. The actual completion time should come from the technician completing the job, either by entering the time manually or using a timer in the work order.

You can also add a reason code or notes field when actual time is much higher than expected. Common reasons might include:

• Waiting on parts
• Asset unavailable
• Missing instructions
• Additional damage found
• Training or troubleshooting needed

This keeps the report focused on process improvement, not blame. If technicians think the data will be used against them, they may underreport time or avoid adding context.

How to use the insights

Expected vs. actual completion time helps you build a more realistic maintenance schedule. If jobs regularly take longer than expected, your backlog and PM schedule may look manageable on paper but be impossible in practice. Updating estimates helps planners assign the right amount of labor, avoid overloading technicians, and make better decisions about what can actually get done in a shift.

You can also use this report to find recurring obstacles. If corrective jobs often run long because parts are missing, the issue may be inventory planning. If certain PMs take longer because instructions are unclear, the procedure may need to be rewritten. If one type of job consistently exceeds the estimate, it may need a second technician, better tools, or additional training.

This report is most useful when combined with other work order data, like maintenance type, priority, failure mode, parts used, and delay reason. Together, those fields help you see whether the gap between expected and actual time is caused by inaccurate estimates, poor planning, asset condition, production constraints, or communication problems.

9. Maintenance costs

What is it

A maintenance costs report shows how much money is being spent on maintenance work. It helps you understand which assets, job types, facilities, or time periods are driving costs. For example, you might look at the cost of emergency repairs on a production-critical line, the cost of PMs on a specific asset group, or the total labor and parts cost for a facility over a quarter. 

Maintenance costs can be tracked by:

• Facility
• Asset/asset group
• Maintenance type
• Labor cost
• Parts cost
• Vendor cost
• Downtime cost
• Time period

How to track it with work orders

The easiest way to track maintenance costs is to add labor, parts, and vendor costs to each work order. Labor costs are calculated by multiplying technician time by hourly rate. Parts costs can come from parts used on the work order. Vendor costs can be added from invoices or service records.

This can get messy fast. Costs are often directional, incomplete, or manually entered. Some teams track direct costs only, like labor and parts. Others also track indirect costs, like lost production from downtime, overtime, expedited shipping, or quality issues caused by equipment failure.

Indirect costs are harder to calculate, but they are often the most important part of the story. For example, an emergency repair might only show $800 in labor and parts, but if the asset went down during peak production, the true cost may be much higher.

To make this easier, start with a consistent set of cost fields, such as:

• Labor cost
• Parts cost
• Outside contractor/vendor cost
• Downtime hours
• Estimated lost production cost

If you track lost production cost, align with operations or production on how that number is calculated. This keeps maintenance from being blamed for every downtime dollar and turns the report into a shared tool for reducing future losses.

How to use the insights

Maintenance cost data helps you see where money is going and where action will have the biggest impact. For example, if emergency work is driving a large share of cost, you can look at the assets, failure modes, and parts tied to those work orders. The next step might be adjusting PMs, stocking critical spares, retraining operators, or replacing an asset that’s becoming too expensive to maintain.

You can also compare costs by maintenance type. If corrective work is rising while PM costs are flat, you may need to improve preventive maintenance coverage. If PM costs are high but downtime is not improving, the PMs may need to be reviewed for frequency, task quality, or relevance.

Asset-level cost reporting is useful for repair-or-replace decisions. A machine that looks inexpensive on one work order may be consuming significant labor, parts, and downtime cost over a year. Looking at total cost over time gives you a stronger case for capital planning.

Time period matters, too. Costs during peak production, seasonal demand, or high-overtime periods may carry more business impact than the same repair during slower periods. Segmenting maintenance costs this way helps leaders understand not just what maintenance costs, but when those costs create the most risk.

10. Technician utilization and specialization spread

What is it

Technician utilization and specialization spread shows how work is distributed across your team. It helps you understand who is doing what work, where your team has deep expertise, and where you may be exposed to knowledge loss.

For example, if two technicians complete 80% of electrical troubleshooting work, that might be efficient today, but risky if one of them retires, leaves, or gets pulled into another project. Technician utilization and specialization spread can be tracked by:

• Facility
• Team/technician/shift
• Maintenance type
• Asset/asset group
• Priority
• Failure mode

How to track it with work orders

The easiest way to track technician utilization is to assign every work order to a team and technician(s). From there, you can report on the number of work orders completed, time spent, and type of work completed by each person or team.

To understand specialization, cross-reference technician data with other work order fields, like maintenance type, asset group, failure mode, priority, or job category. For example, you might look at who completes most of the corrective electrical work, who handles emergency work on production-critical assets, or who gets assigned to complex hydraulic repairs.

How to use the insights

Technician utilization data helps you see whether work is balanced across the team. If a small number of technicians are carrying most of the emergency work, complex repairs, or asset-specific troubleshooting, you may have a capacity issue and a knowledge risk. Those technicians may become bottlenecks, and the team may struggle when they are unavailable.

Specialization spread helps you decide where to focus training and knowledge capture. For example, if one technician handles most work on a critical packaging line, you might start by documenting their troubleshooting process, adding photos or videos to common work orders, and cross-training another technician on those tasks.

You can also use this report to spot training gaps. If newer technicians are only assigned basic PMs while senior technicians handle all corrective work, the team may need a more deliberate path for building skills. Pairing technicians on selected jobs, standardizing procedures, and attaching troubleshooting notes to work orders can help spread knowledge before turnover or retirement creates a bigger problem.

11. Parts usage and forecasted parts for upcoming work orders

What is it

Parts usage reporting shows which parts are being used, how often, and on which assets. Forecasted parts for upcoming work orders shows which parts are likely needed for scheduled work. Together, these reports help you understand current inventory demand and plan for future work. 

For example, if you have 30 PMs scheduled next month and 18 of them require the same filter, you can make sure those parts are available before the work is due.

Parts usage and forecasted parts can be tracked by:

• Facility
• Asset/asset group
• Maintenance type/work order
• Part
• Parts cost
• Lead time
• Part availability

How to track it with work orders

The easiest way to track parts usage is to attach parts to each work order. Technicians should be able to select the parts they used, the quantity used, and the asset the part was used on. This helps connect inventory usage to real maintenance activity instead of relying only on manual stock counts.

For planned work, add expected parts to PMs or scheduled work orders before the job is assigned.

You can also track more detail with fields like:

• Quantity
• Part cost
• Vendor
• Stockout reason
• Substitute part used

How to use the insights

Parts usage data helps you understand what parts are driving cost, delays, and repeat work. For example, if one asset is consuming the same part every few weeks, the issue may not be the part itself. It could be a failure mode, installation problem, operating condition, or PM task that needs to be reviewed.

Forecasted parts help you protect the schedule. If next week’s PMs require parts that are out of stock or below reorder point, you can order them earlier, adjust the schedule, or prioritize the work that carries the most downtime or safety risk.

You can also use this report to improve inventory planning. High-use parts may need adjusted reorder points. Long-lead-time parts may need higher minimum stock levels. Expensive parts tied mostly to emergency work may point to assets that need better PM or replacement planning.

12. Clean start ups after maintenance

What is it

Clean start-up rate measures how often an asset returns to production after maintenance without another stoppage, quality issue, scrap event, or follow-up repair within a defined period.

It helps you understand whether maintenance work is actually resolving the issue and returning the asset to a stable operating condition. For example, if a line starts up after 50 corrective work orders in a month and 42 of those start-ups happen without another issue in the next shift, your clean start-up rate is 84%.

Clean start-ups can be tracked by:

• Facility
• Asset/asset group
• Maintenance type
• Failure mode (failure mode of original work order and/or failed start-up work order)
• Technician/team/shift

How to track it with work orders

The simplest way to track clean start-ups is to add a required field to the work order closeout, such as “Clean start-up confirmed?” with options like yes, no, or unable to verify.

You can also add a short checklist before the work order is closed, including:

• Asset tested
• Operator sign-off completed
• No abnormal noise, vibration, or temperature
• No immediate stoppage after restart
• No quality issue or scrap observed

For more accuracy, you can define a clean start-up window. For example, a start-up might only count as clean if the asset runs for 30 minutes, one production run, or one shift without another stoppage or quality issue. The right window depends on the asset and process.

If the start-up is not clean, the technician or operator can add a reason code or create a follow-up work order linked to the original job. This makes it easier to separate a true repeat issue from a new, unrelated problem.

How to use the insights

Clean start-up data helps you understand whether maintenance work is reducing disruption or simply getting the asset running long enough to hand it back to production.

If clean start-up rates are low, the team may need to look at repair quality, troubleshooting steps, parts availability, procedures, or handoff between maintenance and operations. For example, if an asset often fails again shortly after corrective work, the original work order may be treating the symptom instead of the root cause.

Clean start-up rate is especially useful when compared with repeat work orders, failure modes, scrap, downtime, and maintenance type. If emergency jobs have a lower clean start-up rate than planned work, you may need better troubleshooting checklists or more time for validation before releasing the asset.

13. Planned vs unplanned downtime

A planned vs. unplanned downtime report compares downtime that is scheduled in advance with downtime caused by unexpected failures or disruptions.

This report doesn’t just help you view how much downtime was planned or unplanned, but also what this means for asset performance, costs, and team efficiency. For example, you might compare the cost, duration, or production impact of planned downtime vs unplanned downtime on the same asset. You can also track this metric by:

• Facility
• Asset group
• Cost/duration 
• Failure mode
• Shift/team

How to track it with work orders

The easiest way to track planned vs. unplanned downtime is to add a required maintenance type or downtime type field to work orders. The field can be as simple as planned or unplanned.

You’ll also need to capture downtime duration. This can be entered manually by the technician, recorded with start and stop times, or pulled from production systems if those systems are connected to your work order process. You’ll also need to track costs, either as manual entry fields or automatic inputs based on time, team, and parts used.

It’s important to define planned downtime clearly. A PM scheduled two weeks in advance is planned downtime. A repair done during an emergency stoppage is unplanned downtime. The gray area is corrective work that gets scheduled before failure. Decide how your team will classify that work and apply the rule consistently.

How to use the insights

Planned vs. unplanned downtime helps you show the value of getting ahead of maintenance work.

For example, if planned downtime on a critical filler averages 45 minutes and unplanned downtime averages three hours, that gives you a stronger case for better PM access, more planning time, or spare parts availability.

You can also compare downtime cost. Planned downtime during a production changeover may have a lower business impact than an unplanned stoppage during peak production. Tracking the cost difference helps maintenance and operations work together on when to schedule PMs, which assets need more attention, and where downtime prevention creates the most value.

This report is especially useful when combined with other metrics. Compare MTBF, parts usage, labor hours, and clean start-up rates across planned and unplanned work.

The goal is to make the tradeoff visible. Preventive maintenance still requires downtime, labor, and production access. But this report helps show whether planned downtime is reducing larger unplanned losses, improving asset performance, and giving the team a better way to control risk.

14. Work order alignment/standardization by site

What is it

Running a work order alignment/standardization audit shows you whether facilities are following the same maintenance schedule, procedures, and work order structure for similar assets.

This report is less about completed work order data and more about the work orders and PMs you have planned. It helps you see where sites are aligned, where they are different, and whether those differences are intentional.

For example, if five facilities use the same conveyor system, but one facility does not have a quarterly lubrication PM scheduled, that gap creates avoidable risk. You can audit your PMs by: 

• Facility
• Asset/asset group
• Maintenance type
• Procedure/checklist
• Frequency
• Criticality
• Compliance requirement

How to track it with work orders

The easiest way to track standardization is to compare scheduled PMs, recurring work orders, and procedures across similar sites and assets.

Start by grouping comparable assets or components across facilities. For example, you might look at all air compressors, packaging lines, or similar motors. Then compare whether each site has the right work orders scheduled, at the right frequency, with the same core procedure. You can also track differences with fields like:

• PM frequency
• Procedure/checklist
• Required fields/sign-offs
• Safety steps/PPE
• Last reviewed date
• Site-specific exception

Not every difference is a problem. One site may run an asset harder, operate in a harsher environment, or have a different compliance requirement. The key is making sure those differences are documented and intentional, not accidental.

How to use the insights

Work order standardization helps you find gaps before they turn into downtime, safety issues, or audit problems.

For example, if one facility is missing a PM that every other site performs, you can investigate whether it was skipped during setup, removed by mistake, or intentionally excluded. If the PM should exist, you can add it before the asset fails or the site misses a compliance requirement.

This report is also useful for improving consistency across sites. If one facility has a stronger procedure for a shared asset, you can use it as the baseline for other locations. If another site has too many PMs with little value, you can review whether the work should be simplified or removed.

15. Bad actors report

What is it

A bad actor report shows which assets are causing the most harm to your operation. It combines data like downtime, failure frequency, failure mode, cost, and labor hours to show where asset issues are creating the biggest impact.

For example, let’s say you track 50 production assets over a quarter. A report might show that five assets account for most of the downtime, cost, and emergency work in that period. One has the highest downtime, another has the highest parts cost, and three show repeated failures tied to the same failure modes. 

Bad actor reports can be tracked by:

• Facility
• Asset/asset group
• Downtime
• Failure mode
• Maintenance cost
• Parts usage
• Labor hours
• Repeat work orders
• Safety/compliance impact

How to track it with work orders

The easiest way to build a bad actor report is to make sure every work order is tied to an asset and includes the fields needed to measure impact.

At minimum, you need asset, maintenance type, downtime, and completion date. To make the report more useful, add failure mode, parts used, labor hours, priority, and cost. If you track production impact, scrap, clean start-up issues, or safety/compliance risk, those fields can help you understand the full effect of the asset on the operation.

You can also group bad actors by type. For example:

• High-frequency assets
• High-downtime assets
• High-cost assets
• Repeat-failure assets
• Safety or compliance risk assets

This keeps one extreme number from hiding the full story. An asset with the most work orders is not always the asset creating the biggest business problem.

How to use the insights

Bad actor reports help you decide where to focus first.

For example, if one conveyor has repeated failures tied to belt misalignment, the next step might be updating the PM, retraining operators, improving installation procedures, or reviewing the design. If another asset has fewer failures but each one causes major production loss, the right move might be stocking critical spares, scheduling deeper inspections, or building a capital replacement case.

This report is also useful for showing progress. Once you identify your top bad actors, you can track whether downtime, cost, emergency work, and repeat failures decrease after changes are made.

Bad actor reporting works best when maintenance, operations, and engineering review it together. 

Turn work order data into plant-floor action

Work order reports do not need to be perfect to be useful. Start with the fields your team can capture consistently, then build better reporting habits over time. The goal is to turn everyday work order data into clearer decisions about assets, labor, parts, downtime, and risk. When maintenance teams use reports this way, they can move from explaining what happened to showing what needs to change next.