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  • 1.  Work Types - Best Practice

    Posted 4 days ago

    I am wanting to get opinions on Work Type best practices.

    For example, we currently have the work type CM (Corrective Maintenance), but I was asked if we can remove that and add:

    • Facility Corrective Maintenance
    • Robot Corrective Maintenance
    • Auxiliary Corrective Maintenance
    • Press Corrective Maintenance

    The goal is that it makes categorization of work orders easier.

    I can see the point but am concerned we could get into too many work types by breaking it down into so many subtypes.  

    Or is this a good use case for making Work Types specific by Asset Classification?  The request is not for every asset classification, but I think mainly the most common.

    I'm curious what others who have been in this a while would suggest.

    Thank you in advance,


    #Administration
    #EndUser
    #EverythingMaximo
    #WorkManagement

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    Danny Richardson
    Maximo Administrator Manager
    Technimark LLC
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  • 2.  RE: Work Types - Best Practice

    Posted 4 days ago

    There's probably no right or wrong answer to this.  However, my opinion:

    1. It does seem like making those changes would break one of the very first rules of database normalization, by having essentially multiple values in a single cell.  You're mashing together what should maybe be a Work Type and Sub-Type into a single cell (since Maximo doesn't have a Type & Sub-Type construct).
    2. Which makes me think that reporting on other fields, such as Failure Class, Classification, the Classification of the WO's Asset or Location, etc., would be "better."
    3. But, those database rules are made to be broken.  If having these extra values truly makes the user experience and reporting that much better, it might be worth it -- especially if the alternatives like Classifications or Failure Class aren't currently in use/fully developed.  With those suggested values, it would be easy to report on any one Type, or on all Corrective Maintenance types (as opposed to something else like Inspections, Calibration, Projects, etc.).
    4. That may mean someone gets the undesirable task of going back through old Work Orders and update the Work Type field.
    5. Taking a thought from IT Service Management, I want to get to where the Work Type is an important determinant for a workflow.  A 'CM' type is equivalent to an ITSM 'Incident', where the goal is just fix it as fast as possible. There's generally no approval process necessary.  The opposite is a 'Service Request,' which is give me something I don't have.  This might mean extra purchases, approvals, "hoops" -- > time and money.  Point being: if you happen to use the Work Type as a condition in your Workflow designs and you make these proposed changes to the values for the Work Type field, you'd have to re-design the Workflows too.


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    Travis Herron
    Pensacola Christian College
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Work Types - Best Practice

    Posted 3 days ago

    Hi Danny,

    Firstly, Maximo doesn't care if you remove the CM work type. It doesn't care if you have multiple new work types.  We don't know why 'they' want the change or how it will be used.  This is about how you want to use the work type.  I can see that they're all CM with a qualifier based on an area or machine type.  Is that information elsewhere, i.e. asset type?  What happens as a result of using each work type?  Are workflows, start centres, queries, or reporting involved?

    You are asking the user to choose the correct work type, but that can be said for the OOBT ones, too.

    Is the qualifier based on the asset/location/defect?

    As Travis pointed out, Maximo does not have a Type | Sub-type for many things.  Your approach requires the user to make one choice, whereas with type | sub-type, they have to make two.  Which is more efficient? 

    Does the qualifier only apply to CMs?

    There are very few cases where the work type has been expanded, but that should not stop you if it makes sense for your business.

    The advice I can give:

    • Minimise the number of choices of anything.  Users tend to pick the first option they see and hate having to scroll to select a value.
    • Make sure what you do have makes an impact or is needed for the business
    • Have an audit mechanism to validate that the values are being used correctly

    In the end, your Maximo, do it.



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    Craig Kokay
    Principal Consultant
    COSOL

    email: craig.kokay@cosol.global
    #IBMChampion
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Work Types - Best Practice

    Posted yesterday

    Hi Danny, I'd go along with the other answers here.

    I'd start by applying some self-imposed constraints - there's a tendency with Maximo for people to constantly ask for the system to change rather than evaluate what provides the most value to the busniess.

    Say you couldn't change worktypes - what would the business do? Is the goal to provide a work list for people that is easily split/sorted for them - would a start center do the same job? Does a reliability function need the data curated by asset, location, classification etc. and so will adding worktypes assist or muddy the waters in 5 - 10 years? 

    Each business will be different and so the value is not the same. I'd start with the very last user's requirements in the data's lifecycle and work backwards from there. Then just focus on what adds value, what causes issues and apply some logic from there. 



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    Craig Webber
    Mercury NZ
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    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Work Types - Best Practice

    Posted 5 hours ago

    Hi Danny,

    I would approach categorizing work orders using classifications for the use case described and can be extended to SR application deployment. It will allow the user to select the type of asset without necessarily knowing the asset number. The classification record can be used with automation (scripts, escalation, and/or workflows) that the organization is comfortable with adding additional details to the work order such as failure code, work group, etc.

    I would like to offer another perspective to the discussion regarding work types in their entirety. I advocate that work type EM is not a necessary work type and a work type CM properly prioritized based on impact to the operation drives improved work management. A work type EM tends to circumvent work order execution order.

    The priority is determined from asset criticality, for example or leverage an existing ranking index for maintenance expense (RIME) business process. The priority also derives the target start and completion dates based on the SLA set for each priority relevant to the organization preference. Result is an ordered work order population based on repeatable and defensive decision process.

    This answers the question of where to assign resources; Is a priority three (3) work order from last month and having target start of this week less critical than a priority two (2) received today? Tendency is often to push the lower priority work to address the emerging work; this works to an extent and until the failing low priority work order asset decides to make itself a higher priority by catastrophically failing!



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    Bill Steudler
    Maven Asset Management
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    Original Message