Is your maintenance organization operating in a cyclone of paper, email attachments, text messages, phone calls and voicemails to assign and track work orders? 

There are endless ways for teams to communicate jobs and the status of the work being done. Unfortunately, that whirlwind of information can create major problems. With a multitude of communications options, keeping track of who knows what and the actual status of work can feel like an impossible task. It’s a situation that not only creates confusion; it also wastes enormous amounts of time and money.

ebase surveyed maintenance leaders from education institutions across Canada to learn more about the problems that old-school work order systems created for them. There was no shortage of complaints!

Common frustrations included:

• • Balancing workload fairly between staff.

• • The time and waste it takes to print and distribute paper work orders.

• • Paper forms and duplicates getting misplaced or lost.

• • Difficulty communicating the prioritization of jobs.

• • Hard to tell the actual status of a job without physically going to the job site to see it.

• • Important details from face-to-face and phone conversations are not captured.

While wind unharnessed can create chaos, channelling that chaos with the right tool, a windmill, creates an efficient source of power. Today, 65 school boards and three colleges have channelled the chaos of paper work orders into an efficient and powerful system using the ebase Work Orders Module.  The Work Orders Module harnesses the power of maintenance teams by connecting everyone with a smart, streamlined online system to create, communicate, manage, track and report work.

Take A Pass On Paper

Because the ebase Work Orders Module is web-based, maintenance team members no longer have to spend time chasing paper. Using any web-enabled device, including smartphones, tablets or desktop computers, users can automatically enter facility requests for routine maintenance into a real-time system. Here’s what one Maintenance Manager had to say:  

“I find with new principal and custodial users today it is easy for them to navigate their way through the software with minimum assistance. ebase makes it easy for everyone involved in maintaining school buildings.”

With maintenance requests logged in one central location, maintenance staff can easily see the work at hand from any web-enabled device. But viewing the work orders is just the tip of the iceberg. They can also add comments and photos, log time and related expenses and track their progress on the job. 

Time Is Money

Streamlining communications with the ebase Work Orders Module does more than reduce miscommunication and frustration. It saves time and money. In fact, multiple school boards have reported that they’ve been able to reduce Work Order assignment processing time from 20 minutes down to 5 minutes! Multiply that by the hundreds of work orders that can be created each week, and that adds up to serious savings! 

Show Them What You’re Fixing

With easy-to-use real-time reports, the ebase Work Orders Module makes it simple for Maintenance Managers to create, analyze and share their organization’s real-time data. Easy drop-down menus and sorting features create customized reports with just a few clicks that tell the story of where and how the maintenance team is spending its time. That knowledge becomes a powerful tool in identifying trends to improve routine processes.

Everyone On Board

A new system only works if it works well for all users. The ebase Work Orders module was designed and is regularly updated using input from active maintenance team members. In addition to being incredibly user friendly, comprehensive training when the module is launched and ongoing access to training tools ensure that all users are comfortable using the technology.