Work order printing: when to print, what to put on the page, and how to get it back

When a printed work order still makes sense

A digital work order is easier to track, but a lot of maintenance happens where a phone is a liability. Printing is not a step backwards if you decide in advance which jobs get paper and why. Without that decision, paper spreads to everything, and the system turns into a filing cabinet that is always a week behind the floor.

• No signal or no devices allowed: basements, tank farms, shielded rooms, explosive atmosphere zones where only certified devices may enter.
• Dirty or wet work: gearbox oil changes, hydraulic repairs, wash bays, where the technician will not touch a screen until the job is done anyway.
• Signatures that must be physical: isolation sign-offs, permit to work, customer or auditor acceptance where your procedure requires ink.
• People without accounts: contractors, temporary staff, operators doing a one-off check.
• Long jobs with many readings: a shutdown task where a clipboard next to the machine is faster than unlocking a phone forty times.

What goes on the sheet, top to bottom

Order the page the way the job runs. The technician reads it standing up, often in poor light, so each block should answer one question: what is this, is it safe, what do I do, what do I record, what did I use, is it finished.

1. Identification: work order number in large type, equipment ID and name, exact location (building, line, bay), priority, due date, assigned person. Add a barcode or QR code of the work order number so whoever keys it in later can open the record in one scan.
2. The problem or the task: for a breakdown, the original request text exactly as the requester wrote it, plus who reported it and when. Do not summarise it. The technician needs the operator's words.
3. Safety before steps: energy sources and isolation points, required PPE, permit number if one applies, and a tick box for each isolation that was confirmed.
4. Steps as a checklist: numbered, one action per line, with a box for done, not done and not applicable. Three states matter: a blank box tells you nothing.
5. Readings: each with its unit printed in the box and the acceptable range printed beside it, plus the value from the last service so the technician can spot a trend on the spot.
6. Parts: planned parts with part number, quantity and bin location, and empty lines for parts actually used.
7. Close-out: start and finish time, meter reading, failure code tick boxes for breakdowns, a short remarks area, follow-up needed yes or no, signature and date.

Leave out what does not help at the machine. Full equipment history, long manuals and every past comment turn one page into four, and nobody reads page three. If the technician might need a drawing, print a reference to where it hangs or is stored rather than the drawing itself.

Layout details that decide whether the data comes back usable

Most printed work orders fail at the moment someone tries to type them back in. The handwriting is fine. The trouble is that the form invited free text where you needed a value. These details are small but they decide the quality of your history.

• Units inside the box. A box that reads ____ bar cannot come back as psi, and a temperature cannot come back without a unit.
• Character boxes for numbers. One square per digit, with the decimal point pre-printed, cuts misreads between 1 and 7 or 4 and 9 and stops people writing 4.5 as 45.
• Code lists, not blank lines. Print the five to eight failure codes that apply to this equipment type as tick boxes, plus an Other box. You get codes you can count instead of phrases like broke again.
• Boxes sized for gloves. Write-in areas should be big enough for someone holding a pen in work gloves on a clipboard against a machine guard.
• Print stamp in the footer. Printed date and time, printed by, and the work order version. This is how you catch a stale copy.
• One job per sheet, single sided. Two jobs on one page means one of them gets closed twice or not at all. The back stays free for sketches.
• Black and white safe. Never use colour alone to show priority or out of range limits. Shop printers and photocopies lose it.

Example: a printed monthly PM sheet for a pump

This is an illustrative example, not a recommended procedure. The values are placeholders: use your manufacturer's figures and your own history. It shows how each block of the sheet splits into what you print and what the technician writes.

Look at the readings row. Because the last value is printed, a technician who sees bearing temperature well above last month can act while still standing at the pump, even if it is inside the limit. On a blank form that trend would only show up when someone graphs it weeks later, if anyone does.

Getting the paper back into the system

The weak point of printed work orders is not the floor, it is the office. Sheets pile up in a tray, someone types them in on Friday, half the readings are guessed from smudges, and the job shows as open all week, so the backlog looks worse than it is. Set the return loop up as deliberately as the form.

1. One return point. A labelled tray or box per shift, in the same place every day. Completed and not completed sheets go in separate slots.
2. Same day entry. Results go in before the end of the shift or first thing next morning, while the technician is still around to read their own writing.
3. Named owner. One person per shift is responsible for keying sheets in. Ideally it is the technician, because then nobody has to interpret anyone else's handwriting.
4. Completeness check before closing. No reading box empty without a reason, failure code ticked on every breakdown, times and meter reading present. Incomplete sheets go back, they do not get closed with blanks.
5. Follow-ups become requests. Anything written in remarks that needs work is raised as a new work request at entry, not left on the paper.
6. Keep or scan the original only if you must. If your procedure or an auditor requires the signed sheet, scan it and attach it to the work order. Otherwise the typed record is the record.

Batch printing preventive maintenance without stale paper

Printing a week of preventive maintenance on Monday looks efficient, but by Thursday some of those sheets are wrong. A job got rescheduled, a step changed, a meter based PM came due earlier or later than expected, or the equipment was moved. The technician works from the paper in their hand, not from the system.

• Print the day before, not the week before. Plan the week on screen, print each day's sheets at the end of the previous shift.
• Group by route. Sort the batch by building and line so the stack matches the walk, not the work order number.
• Reprint on every edit. If a printed work order changes, reprint it with the new version number and collect and destroy the old copy. Mark any duplicate print as COPY.
• Check meter based PMs at print time. Print the current meter reading and the due reading on the sheet, so the technician can see whether the job is genuinely due.
• Unfinished sheets come back too. A PM not done today returns to the tray with a reason ticked, such as no access, no parts or equipment running, so it can be rescheduled instead of disappearing.

Common mistakes and how to fix them

Whatever tool you use, check that it can produce a one page print layout with the work order number as a scannable code and the last reading shown. In Solmex, the work order itself stays the single record, and paper is only how it travels to the machine and back.

Frequently asked questions