Troubleshooting
Let's talk about accuracy in work orders. When our resident calls us to go to their apartment. Oftentimes we don't know what the problem is. We just have an indication or some information from our resident that has either put the information in on a portal, they've called our office, or they have generated the work order, uh, in an email or a text message.
What that indicates for us as technicians is that we're beginning with partial information. That means that. We don't know what's happening. An example of this would be bathtub leaking. What does that mean? Is the faucet dripping? Is a knob leaking, has a valve broken, and you've got water spurting everywhere.
Is the drain leaking from the apartment upstairs? Is the caulking failing and now you have water that's going behind the tile wall. All of those are within the realm of possibility. Just based on the original note, a part of ensuring that we complete work orders correctly the first time is taking the time to perform a proper diagnosis.
That means first when we begin working on a work order, make some guesses, but have no firm assumption as to what the problem actually is. Be curious. Remember that we as maintenance technicians are relying on third or fourth party information. That means that our resident has told someone. Or told an impersonal something that did not have enough knowledge to begin with, to ask questions, to begin to identify the root cause of whatever it is that they're talking about.
This means that the first step in ensuring that we're accurate in our work order repairs is to thoroughly diagnose, use your troubleshooting skills as well as. Work orders that you fixed or solved in the past to identify what's wrong with this situation. The next thing to do to ensure that we don't have to go back is use the correct parts.
The correct parts means that always attempt to perform a permanent repair as opposed to a quick bandaid type finish. The third piece is install those parts correctly. Take time for whatever part, piece or component that is the correct one to follow the manufacturer instructions. That may mean if you're per working on a piece of equipment, like an air conditioning system, for instance, use the right size.
Component example, a capacitor, and then install it the way either the system manufacturer or the repair component manufacturer states following these methods. Diagnose, use the correct parts and follow the manufacturer instructions on how to install those parts. We'll ensure less times that we have to go back to the same apartment for the same situation.
