Works order

A works order is an internal instruction to carry out work on a specific job: what is to be done, with what materials, by whom and by when. It is the document that turns something the customer has bought into something the workshop, the install team or a sub-contractor can act on. The word internal is the whole distinction, and it is what people are usually trying to pin down when they look the term up.

Set against the documents it sits between: a sales order records what the customer has bought and at what price. A works order instructs your own people, or a sub-contractor, to produce or install it. A purchase order goes outward to a supplier to buy goods or services. A job record is the container that holds all three together with the delivery notes and the invoice. Most jobs of any size generate one sales order, one or more works orders and several purchase orders.

What a works order contains

• The job or sales order reference it belongs to.
• A description of the work, precise enough to be done without a phone call.
• The materials or equipment required, and where they are coming from.
• Who the work is assigned to, whether a team, a workstation or a named sub-contractor.
• The start date and the date the work must be finished by.
• Any customer-specific instruction, such as site access times or packing requirements.
• Space for the completion sign-off, which is what authorizes the cost and closes the order.

Where works orders are used

UK usage covers two quite different patterns. In manufacturing and distribution the works order is a production instruction: build this rack to this drawing, or pick and pack this quantity into this configuration, which is where kitting is instructed. A promotional merchandise distributor uses one to tell a decoration supplier the print method, PMS color, position and garment breakdown for an order.

In field service and construction the works order is a site instruction: attend this address on this date, carry out this scope, sign off on completion. Facilities and maintenance contracts often run entirely on works orders raised against a standing contract, each priced from an agreed schedule of rates. The same document does both jobs because both are asking the same question: who is doing what, on which job, by when.

Zigaflow raises works orders against the parent job, so the instruction, the purchase orders that support it and the sign-off that closes it sit on one record rather than in an email thread.