Merging Work Orders

If the work is redundant, I reject/cancel all redundant work requests/orders for that asset except for the most relevant work order and leave a comment on the canceled jobs referencing the consolidation.

If you’re referring to separate repeating work orders for the same asset that land around the same time in intervals (eg. nested PMs), I haven’t found a good solution for this yet. When they overlap, I leave comments that apply to all of the overlapping jobs in the work order with the largest scope, then reference the “parent” work order in the comments section of each of the lesser jobs. Time gets logged toward each job as normal.

But as far as actually grouping the work orders into a folder or larger collective work order, I believe this is outside of software limitations.

I also run into situations where I have multiple open orders for the same piece of equipment. Either from overlapping repeating orders to multiple damage orders. I have been keeping the “most severe” one open and adding the work order numbers of the other ones in the comment section.

Using made up work order numbers- Annual inspection (being the most detailed comprehensive) will supersede a 90 day inspection. In the notes of the 90 day inspection I will add the comment “Completed with annual inspection 1234” and in the notes for the annual inspection I will add the comment “90 day inspection 4321 completed with this work order.”

We separate all of our maintenance out by category so we can track failure rates on different parts of the equipment. So if I have work order 222 open for sidewall damage, order 333 open for roof damage and order 444 open for inoperative brakes, I will combine all of the orders into order 444 as it is the most severe and add the note “Completed with order 444” into the notes for 222 and 333 and complete those out. This allows me to keep track of the number of orders opened for each category even though they aren't necessarily being completed under that order.

The only time we do not do this is with preventative orders and corrective orders.

Is your concern to make sure that all open work orders are being worked on when the technician is at the piece of equipment? If so, if you print a QR code for the asset and apply it to the piece of equipment the technician can scan this and MaintainX will show all open work orders. I would complete a work order, scan the QR code again, complete, wash, rinse, and repeat until the list is finished.