Dayo | 5 Sep 2025
Word order backlogs are a reality that all maintenance and facilities management teams face. By maintenance backlog, we mean a collection of approved, planned, but yet-to-be-completed tasks, including everything from routine inspections and preventive maintenance to corrective repairs. Work order backlogs are typically measured in terms of labor hours or weeks of work, allowing maintenance managers to obtain a snapshot of the actual workload compared to available resources (Fiix Software, 2023).
Having a work order backlog isn’t a bad thing; it’s a reality in the maintenance world. A small and steady backlog can be considered healthy because it ensures technicians always have work to do and the maintenance team is properly staffed. A limited work order backlog prevents idle time and contributes to smoother scheduling. Industry benchmarks suggest that a two to four week backlog is generally ideal, with a mix of planned work (2–3 weeks) and scheduled work (1–2 weeks).
The problem arises when work order backlogs exceed this range. Having an excessive backlog flags systemic challenges such as poor planning, resource shortages, or over-reliance on reactive maintenance. The associated consequences can be severe: higher maintenance costs, more frequent equipment breakdowns, reduced asset life, and increased safety hazards.
On the other hand, when work order backlogs are managed effectively, they can be transformed into a strategic tool, as they help prioritize critical assets, align maintenance with operational goals, and ensure resources are utilized efficiently. Tracking backlogs in measurable terms enables organizations to monitor trends, identify bottlenecks, and stay ahead of potential risks. Modern tools like Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS Software) provide the visibility and insights needed to make this possible. The software achieves this by providing dashboards that track work order age, technician workloads, spare parts availability, and completion rates.
Beyond CMMS / work order software, advanced practices such as predictive maintenance and risk-based inspection provide organizations with an additional means to reduce unnecessary backlog and focus on the highest-impact tasks. These approaches prioritize efficiency and reliability, preventing both over-scheduling and dangerous delays.
This article presents a step-by-step plan for effectively managing work order backlogs. We’ll explore factors such as gaining organizational buy-in, prioritizing tasks, allocating resources, and monitoring progress, and offer practical guidance on maintaining healthy backlogs.
A Stepwise Framework for Managing Work Order Backlog
Step 1: Get Buy-In
Ground Zero for backlog management is achieving alignment across stakeholders. Since maintenance teams can’t succeed in isolation, production managers, leadership, and frontline technicians all need to be on the same page when it comes to finding ways to reduce work order backlogs. This means that maintenance operations should no longer be sidelined in favor of short-term production targets. Work order backlogs need to be viewed as a long-term investment in asset reliability, efficiency, and safety, rather than a disruption to operations.
Effective communication is vital to gaining buy-in. By presenting backlog in measurable terms (e.g., weeks of work) and linking it to tangible business outcomes, such as reduced downtime, improved safety compliance, or cost savings, maintenance leaders are better positioned to gain support from executives and plant managers. When leadership views backlog reduction as a strategic initiative—not just a maintenance concern—it becomes easier to allocate time, resources, and budget toward the effort.
Step 2: Prioritize the Work
The next step involves assessing the backlog to determine the priority tasks. Not all tasks carry the same weight. For example, a lubrication job missed by a few days is far less critical than a preventive inspection on a production bottleneck asset. The following are three key factors to consider when establishing a prioritization guide:
- Asset criticality – Does the task affect high-value, high-risk, or safety-critical assets?
- Lateness – Has the task been missed multiple times, compounding risk?
- Ease and duration – Can quick, low-impact jobs be completed now to reduce backlog volume?
Using these as a prioritization template, maintenance managers can standardize their prioritization process and ensure consistency across the team. This helps eliminate bias and prevents less important requests from overtaking more critical work. Prioritizing backlogged maintenance tasks also strengthens the culture of preventive maintenance by ensuring the most impactful jobs are completed first.
Step 3: Assess Your Resources
As a prelude to attacking a backlog, it’s essential to assess what resources are actually available. This includes technician availability, skill sets, certifications, parts, tools, and safety gear. It makes little sense to assign a highly specialized repair to a technician without proper accreditation, or to schedule work without confirming part availability,
Organizations should also consider maintenance windows and ensure that sufficient information is attached to each work order to facilitate safe execution. For instance, a boiler inspection requiring a system shutdown might only be possible during a planned outage. By mapping backlog against realistic resource constraints, managers can avoid wasted time and align workload with the team's actual capabilities.
Step 4: Factor In Risks
Backlog tasks can vary considerably in their complexity. For example, some are classified as high-intensity jobs, such as major rebuilds or multi-day overhauls. Understandably, these require extra foresight, time, and planning. Skipping this step can lead to extended downtime, safety incidents, or repeated failures.
To mitigate these issues, maintenance managers should consider assigning extra labor, scheduling additional training, ensuring proper PPE (personal protective equipment), and confirming the availability of technical manuals or OEM support. Treating these types of backlog tasks with extra care not only reduces the chance of failure but also builds confidence among technicians that the work can be executed safely and efficiently.
Step 5: Build Efficient & Safe Work Orders
Although prioritizing work order backlog reduction is critical, ensuring the quality of the work to be done is equally important. A poorly written work order / work request leads to wasted time, repeated questions, and incomplete repairs– ultimately, accomplishing little in reducing the backlog. Instead, effective work orders should include:
- Clear and detailed instructions – What exactly needs to be done, step by step.
- Parts list and locations – So technicians don’t waste hours searching for spares.
- Safety requirements and PPE – To ensure jobs are done safely.
- Supporting materials – Manuals, diagrams, or troubleshooting images.
- Contextual information – Descriptions of the original problem and notes from previous interventions.
By standardizing work order templates and requiring complete information, organizations eliminate ambiguity and increase technician productivity. Over time, these practices lead to fewer errors, faster task completion, and improved backlog control.
Step 6: Track Everything
Backlog management requires ongoing visibility and tracking. That’s where a CMMS comes into play by making all aspects of work order backlogs visible, including a list of the needed parts, clear instructions, and work order status.
Equally important is the CMMS’s ability to collect data. Apart from providing the above-noted critical information, a CMMS also offers real-time data and insights into backlog trends (in weeks of work), completion rates, and aging tasks. This valuable information enables managers to spot problems early. A CMMS makes this easier by centralizing data, automating reports, and surfacing bottlenecks. Continuous monitoring not only reinforces buy-in but also enables continuous improvement, ensuring the backlog stays within a healthy 2–4 week range.
Prevent Recurrence
Reducing backlog is just one part of the solution. The other piece is that organizations must also prevent it from building up again. This involves reviewing completed work orders to identify recurring issues, eliminating duplicate tasks, and adjusting preventive maintenance schedules based on outcomes. For example, if specific equipment faults occur less frequently than expected, PM intervals can be optimized to reduce unnecessary work without compromising reliability. The opposite is also true; if the faults occur more regularly than expected, the PM intervals can be adjusted accordingly to increase surveillance.
Standardizing work order templates, aligning organizational definitions of “high priority,” and proactively tracking parts and technician capacity further help prevent backlog from reappearing. Dashboards and CMMS tools make it easier to monitor trends, anticipate bottlenecks, and ensure resources are available before problems escalate. By embedding these practices into daily operations, maintenance teams transform backlog management from a reactive task into a continuous, sustainable process.
Conclusion
Managing work order backlog doesn’t have to be overwhelming. By following the six-step framework—Get Buy-In, Prioritize Work, Assess Resources, Plan for Risks, Build Efficient & Safe Work Orders, and Track Progress—maintenance teams can successfully regain control over pending tasks and also improve operational efficiency and asset reliability. When carried through systematically, each step reinforces the next, creating a strategic approach that addresses both the immediate work order backlog and long-term prevention.
When considering healthy maintenance operations, it’s important to remember that a reasonable backlog is not inherently bad. When maintained within industry benchmarks (typically 2–4 weeks), backlog keeps technicians’ workloads balanced, ensures continuous engagement, and supports smooth scheduling without creating unnecessary pressure. A healthy backlog signals an organization with a proactive maintenance program rather than one that is reactive in its attempt to catch up.
If a work order backlog is weighing down your maintenance operations, consider following the steps outlined here. Leveraging CMMS tools can provide the visibility, tracking, and reporting needed to maintain a healthy backlog over time. By implementing these practices, organizations can transform backlog from a persistent challenge into a strategic asset—improving reliability, safety, and overall operational performance.
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