Work Order Automation: The Solution to Your Maintenance Costs

Think about your work orders today. Are they on paper, a whiteboard or a complex spreadsheet? If so, you’re not alone. Many maintenance and facility teams still rely on these manual systems, believing they’re saving money. But what if those “free” tools were actually a silent, slow drain on your budget and productivity? In our experience, skipping work order automation comes with significant hidden costs — and it’s time to expose them. 

The Hidden Costs of Skipping Work Order Automation

Paper-based or manual work order management systems may seem inexpensive at first glance, but they’re filled with hidden costs that erode your bottom line. These inefficiencies compound over time, making your maintenance operations less effective and more expensive. Examples include:

• Wasted labor and time: Manual processes like data entry, chasing down signatures and updating spreadsheets are labor-intensive. Every minute a maintenance technician spends on paperwork is a minute they aren’t fixing an asset or performing preventive maintenance. This inefficiency also means you may need more staff to handle the same workload.
• Human error: We’re all human, and we all make mistakes. Manual data entry is prone to typos, misplaced information and inaccurate records. These small errors can lead to big problems like incorrect parts orders, botched repairs and incomplete maintenance histories, which can result in more unplanned downtime and higher costs.
• Lack of visibility: When work orders are scattered across different platforms, you have no central source of truth. It’s impossible to track progress, prioritize urgent jobs or see which assets are costing you the most in repairs. Without this data, you’re flying blind, unable to make informed decisions that improve your operations.
• Limited accountability: In a manual system, who did what and when can get murky. With no digital audit trail, it’s difficult to hold people accountable for their work or track maintenance history for specific assets. This can be a major issue for teams that need to meet compliance standards or justify their budget to management.
• Reduced asset lifespan: Proactive maintenance is key to extending the life of your equipment. When you’re bogged down with reactive work, you’re not giving your assets the care they need. This leads to more frequent breakdowns, reduced asset lifespan and higher replacement costs down the line.

Examples of Work Order Automation

Implementing a work order software is the most effective way to eliminate these hidden costs and transform your maintenance operations. But work order automation isn’t a single feature; it’s a process that streamlines your entire workflow. A software solution like Coast automates key steps in the work order management process, from creation to closure. These steps include:

• Automated work order generation: A computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) automatically creates new work orders based on pre-set triggers. This can be for preventive maintenance, such as a scheduled quarterly inspection or a condition-based trigger, like a sensor alert that indicates a machine is overheating.
• Intelligent assignment and prioritization: Instead of a manager manually assigning tasks, a work order software or CMMS can automatically route a work order to the right technician based on their skill set, availability and location. The system can also prioritize urgent tasks, addressing high-impact issues immediately.
• Real-time status updates: With a mobile-first CMMS, technicians can update a work order’s status from the field. As soon as they complete a task, the status is automatically updated for the entire team to see. This eliminates the need for phone calls, emails and radio communication, which frees up time and improves efficiency.
• Automated reporting and analytics: A digital solution captures all the data related to a work order, from the time it was created to the time it was closed. The software can then automatically generate reports on key maintenance metrics like work order completion rates, labor costs and asset uptime. This gives managers a clear, data-driven picture of their maintenance operations without any manual data entry.

Key Benefits of Work Order Automation

Work order automation does more than just fix manual inefficiencies. It also introduces powerful benefits that can help you transform your maintenance operations. These benefits are the reason maintenance and facility teams are making the switch from manual processes or spreadsheets to a CMMS. They include:

• Increased efficiency and productivity: With automation, your team spends less time on administrative tasks and more time on high-impact work. This translates to more completed work orders with the same number of people. Case in point: Coast Customer Zeb Freeman saw a 600 percent increase in efficiency when his team at UT Southwestern started using Coast.
• Improved communication and collaboration: A CMMS provides a centralized hub for all work-related communication. Technicians can communicate with managers and each other in real time on a specific work order, which keeps all conversations organized and in one place.
• Reduced downtime and costs: By automating preventive maintenance, you can reduce the frequency of unexpected equipment breakdowns. This is a massive win, as unplanned downtime is one of the most significant costs a business can face. Automation helps you be proactive, not reactive, which can lead to huge savings.
• Data-driven decisions: A CMMS captures a wealth of data about your maintenance operations. This allows you to generate reports and dashboards that give you actionable insights into asset performance, labor costs and more. You can identify problem assets, optimize your preventive maintenance schedule and justify future investments with hard data.

Use Cases & Applications of Work Order Automation

Work order automation isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. It can be applied in various ways to solve specific problems and improve different aspects of your maintenance operations. The key is understanding how to apply it to your specific use cases.

Manufacturing

• The need: A facility manager in a manufacturing plant needs to perform a weekly inspection on a critical packaging machine. 
• The automated solution: Instead of manually creating a work order every week, they schedule a recurring preventive maintenance task in their CMMS. The software automatically generates a work order every Monday morning, assigns it to the lead technician and sends a notification to their mobile device. The technician can then perform the inspection and check off each step on a digital checklist, all from their phone. This ensures the PM is never missed and provides a detailed history of the work.

Facility Management

• The need: A facility manager gets an urgent request from a tenant that a pipe is leaking. This request comes in via text, and the manager needs a better way to track it.
• The automated solution: An automated request portal allows anyone to submit a work request, which then automatically generates a new work order. The manager puts a QR code on the pipe for future work requests to be submitted and automatically tracked through the work order system.

Higher Education

• The Need: A maintenance manager for a school district wants to analyze the maintenance costs for all their HVAC units.  history of a specific asset or see how many times it’s broken down in a year.
• The automated solution: With a CMMS, all work orders for each HVAC unit are automatically linked to the asset’s profile. The manager can then generate a report that shows the total cost of all repairs, the number of work orders and the average time to complete a job for each unit. This data can then inform decisions about whether to repair or replace a particular asset.

How Coast Can Help Streamline Your Work Order Automation

Coast offers a modern, intuitive platform that is built to automate your work orders from end to end. With Coast, you can centralize your operations and move away from the chaos of fragmented systems. Here are a few key features:

• Mobile-first design: Our mobile app allows your team to manage their work orders from anywhere. Technicians can receive automated work order assignments, update their status with a few taps and attach photos directly from their phone. This creates a complete digital audit trail, eliminating the need for paperwork and manual data entry.
• Automated preventive maintenance: With Coast, you can set up preventive maintenance schedules that automatically generate work orders at regular intervals. You can customize the frequency based on time or usage and assign it to a specific technician or team. This ensures critical maintenance never gets overlooked, which can help extend the life of your assets.
• Real-time communication: Coast’s built-in messaging feature allows technicians and managers to communicate directly on a work order. This keeps conversations organized and provides a centralized record of all communication related to a specific job.

Manual work order processes aren’t just inefficient; they’re a financial drain that limits your team’s potential. They lead to wasted time, costly errors and a constant state of reactive maintenance. By centralizing your operations, automating key tasks and empowering your team with mobile tools, you can turn your maintenance department from a cost center into a strategic asset.