Repair workflows rarely fail inside a step. Operators find faults, technicians fix machines, storekeepers issue parts — each of those is generally done competently by people who know their job. What fails is the handover between them, where information that existed on one side does not arrive on the other and someone has to reconstruct it. A technician re-diagnosing a fault the operator had already described, a storekeeper guessing at a part number, a supervisor closing a job without knowing whether the fix held. Designing the workflow means deciding what has to travel at each handover, not just what happens at each step. You can map your own flow in a free 30-minute session.
Seven Steps, Six Handovers — the Handovers Are the Hard Part
From defect flagged to machine running, with what must travel between each pair of hands for the next step to work.
The Seven Steps
The operator or inspector finds something. Either during a structured check, or because the machine behaved differently.
Hands on: what was seen, where on the machine, how severe it appeared, and a photograph. Without the photograph the next step starts blind.
The finding becomes a record attached to the machine, with a time and a person, rather than a conversation.
Hands on: a defect linked to the asset, so the next step knows which machine, which component, and what else that machine has been doing.
Someone decides severity: does this stop the machine now, get scheduled, or get monitored? This decision should take minutes and often takes days.
Hands on: a priority and a decision about whether the machine keeps working, communicated to the site rather than held in the workshop.
Parts identified and checked against stock, labour estimated, and a slot agreed with whoever is using the machine.
Hands on: confirmed part availability and an agreed time. Sending a job to the floor without both is how jobs stall mid-repair.
The repair itself, with the technician starting from what the operator reported rather than from nothing.
Hands on: what was actually found, what was done, parts used, and time taken — captured as the work happens, not reconstructed later.
Confirmation that the fault is gone, ideally by the person who reported it, under the conditions where it appeared.
Hands on: a confirmation or a rejection. The step most often skipped, and the reason repeat failures look like new faults.
The record completes with cost against the asset, and the fault joins that machine's history where patterns can be seen.
Hands on: nothing downstream, which is why this step gets dropped. Its value is entirely in what it makes possible months later.
Three Handovers That Fail Most Often
Detect to report
The operator noticed and said something verbally. Nothing exists afterwards, so the fault continues until it becomes obvious. Fixed by making reporting faster than mentioning it.
Report to triage
The defect sits in a queue nobody reviews daily. Fixed by routing on severity automatically rather than waiting for someone to read the list.
Execute to verify
The machine goes back to work and nobody asks whether the fault recurred. Fixed by making verification a step with an owner rather than an assumption.
Make the Information Travel Automatically
Each step receiving what the previous one produced, so nothing has to be reconstructed at a handover.
Testing Your Own Workflow
Take one recent repair and walk it backwards. These questions find the weak handover quickly.
Could the technician see what the operator reported, including a photograph, before starting?
How long did the defect wait before someone decided its severity?
Was parts availability confirmed before the machine came in, or discovered afterwards?
Does the record say what was found, or only what was done?
Did anyone confirm the fault was gone, and is that confirmation recorded?
Can you find every previous occurrence of this fault on this machine in under a minute?
Frequently Asked Questions
Is seven steps too many for a small repair?
The steps still occur, they just compress. On a five-minute fix, triage, plan, and verify happen in the technician's head within seconds. The value of naming them is knowing which one was skipped when something goes wrong. You can see how light the flow can be on a call with our team.
Who should verify the fix?
Ideally whoever reported it, because they know what the fault felt like. A technician verifying their own work checks that it was done, not that it worked.
Why does step seven keep getting dropped?
Because nothing downstream depends on it, so nobody chases it. It only pays back later, which makes it the easiest thing to defer and the most expensive habit to build back.
Should triage be automated?
Routing can be, based on the severity marked at reporting. The judgement about whether to stop a machine should stay with a person who knows the site situation.
Where do most fleets gain fastest?
At the first handover, because everything downstream depends on a defect existing as a record at all. Start with a free trial.
Design the Handovers, Not Just the Steps
Decide what has to travel at each point — photograph and location to the report, severity and a hold decision to the site, confirmed parts to the floor, findings to the record, and a verification back from whoever reported it.
