What a work order is
A work order is a record that authorises and tracks a piece of maintenance work, from the moment it is requested through to the moment it is completed. It typically names the asset involved, describes the task, says who is responsible, and carries a status that moves from open through in progress to completed.
Work orders give a maintenance team structure. Instead of jobs living in someone's head or in scattered messages, each task has a record that can be assigned, prioritised and closed off with a note of what was done. Over time, the work orders raised against an asset build into a maintenance history that helps a team see what keeps going wrong and plan ahead.
Work orders can be raised reactively, when something breaks, or automatically by a preventive maintenance schedule when a service is due. For multi-site operators, the value is having one consistent way of raising and tracking work across every venue.
Work orders in the Cohiva platform
Cohiva Control is a computerised maintenance management system (CMMS) for multi-site teams. It manages assets and work orders and schedules preventive maintenance, so reactive and scheduled work are tracked in one place and each asset builds a clear history.
Control also posts fixed-asset depreciation to the ledger, keeping the maintenance and finance sides of an asset connected. To see how it works, explore Control.