Field service and maintenance glossary

An asset register is the structured record an organisation keeps of the assets it owns, finances, or is accountable for, listing each item with its identifiers, location, cost, depreciation, and ownership or security status. It answers what we have, where it is, and who has a claim on it.

Asset uptime is the percentage of scheduled operating time during which a piece of equipment is available and able to run, calculated by dividing the hours it could actually run by the hours it was scheduled to run. It is the availability half of every reliability programme.

Asset utilisation rate is the share of an asset's available time or capacity that was actually spent doing productive work, calculated by dividing hours or units of real output by the hours or units available in the same period. It measures equipment rather than people, and it is not the same thing as availability.

Asset verification is the practice of confirming that an asset genuinely exists, that it matches the identifiers and specification on the paperwork, and that it sits in the location and condition the record claims. It is a control against clerical error and against deliberate misrepresentation.

Awaab's Law is the set of legal timeframes within which social landlords in England must investigate and fix hazards such as damp and mould in their tenants' homes. It was introduced through the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 and is being brought in in phases from October 2025.

Break-fix is the service model where work is carried out, and paid for, only when something fails. There is no ongoing fee and no standing commitment: the customer calls, a job is raised, an engineer attends, and the invoice covers that visit's labour, parts and travel.

Commissioning is the structured process of proving that an installed system performs the way it was specified to, tested and documented before responsibility passes to the operator. Installation puts the equipment in place. Commissioning proves it works, and records the proof.

A daily plant inspection is the check an operator makes on a piece of construction plant, such as an excavator, dumper, roller or telehandler, before it is used each day on site, to confirm it is safe to operate. The result is recorded and any defect is reported before the machine works.

A damp and mould inspection is a visual and instrument check of a home to find where moisture is coming from, how far any mould has spread and what needs to be done. It distinguishes condensation, penetrating damp and rising damp, records each affected area with dated photos, and for social landlords in England now runs to fixed legal timeframes.

Damp meter readings are the figures shown by a handheld moisture meter when it is pressed or pinned against a wall, floor or timber. The number indicates relative moisture rather than measuring water content, and it only becomes evidence of a damp problem when recorded with where, when and on what material it was taken.

Digital inspection forms are inspection checklists completed on a phone or tablet instead of paper, with each item recorded as a structured answer and the photos, location, time and sign-off captured inside the same record. They enforce completeness at the point of inspection rather than checking it afterwards.

Dispatch is the act of releasing a job to a named technician and committing them to travel to site, with the parts, permits and information the job needs. It is the point where a plan becomes a vehicle on the road, and the last moment at which a visit can still be avoided.

Disposal is the final stage of the asset lifecycle, where an asset is permanently removed from the operating fleet by sale, part exchange, scrapping or write-off. A disposal is only complete when ownership, liability and any statutory record have all transferred away from the operator.

A driver daily defect report is the written record a driver completes after the daily walkaround check on a goods vehicle or bus, stating any defects found or confirming there were none. It is assessed and signed off by the operator, and DVSA guidance expects it to be kept for at least 15 months.

An EICR, or Electrical Installation Condition Report, is the formal report a qualified electrician produces after inspecting and testing the fixed wiring of a property. Landlords in England must obtain one at least every five years and act on any dangerous findings within a set period.

Electronic proof of delivery (ePOD) is a digital record, captured on a phone or handheld at the point of handover, that shows a consignment was delivered: the time, the location, who received it, their signature or name, and usually photographs of the goods where they were left. It replaces the signed paper delivery note.

An emergency lighting test checks that emergency luminaires and exit signs come on and stay on when the normal supply fails. Under BS 5266-1 the routine is a short monthly function test and an annual full-duration test, each recorded in the emergency lighting logbook.

Equipment finance is the funding a business uses to acquire machinery, vehicles, technology or plant without paying the full cost upfront, structured so the equipment itself is the main security for the debt. It covers both lending against equipment and the leasing structures built around it.

A field engineer is a technically qualified person who works at customer sites rather than from a fixed workshop, installing, commissioning, diagnosing, repairing and certifying equipment where it sits. The role pairs hands-on technical skill with decisions made alone, on site, usually under time pressure.

A fire door inspection is a documented check that a fire door and its frame, seals, hinges, glazing and self-closing device are intact and will hold back fire and smoke as designed. In England, taller residential blocks must check communal fire doors quarterly and flat entrance doors annually under the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022.

A fire extinguisher inspection is the routine visual check that an extinguisher is in its place, unobstructed, undamaged, with the pin and tamper seal intact and the pressure gauge in the green. It is done monthly by the premises' own staff and is separate from the annual service by a competent engineer.

First-time fix rate is the share of service jobs resolved on the first visit, with no return trip for parts, information or a second technician. It is the headline productivity measure in field service, calculated as jobs fixed first time divided by total jobs.

Fleet management is the coordinated running of a company's vehicles across their whole life, covering acquisition, licensing, maintenance, driver compliance, fuel, utilisation and disposal, so the fleet meets operational demand at a controlled cost and inside the law. It is a discipline, not a piece of software.

Fleet telematics is the use of an in-vehicle device or built-in connected system to record location, driving behaviour, fuel use and engine diagnostics and send it to the fleet office, so vehicles can be tracked, routed and maintained without anyone calling the driver. Insurers use similar data for a different job.

A fleet tyre inspection is the routine check of every tyre on a fleet's vehicles and trailers for tread depth, inflation pressure, sidewall and tread damage, and wheel security, recorded so that a worn or damaged tyre is replaced before it fails or puts the vehicle outside the legal limit.

A forklift daily check is the visual and functional inspection an operator carries out on a lift truck before the first use of each shift, covering tyres, forks, mast, hydraulics, brakes, steering, lights and horn, with every defect recorded and any unsafe truck taken out of use before work starts.

Field service management is the coordination of work carried out away from the employer's own premises: raising and prioritising jobs, matching them to technicians with the right skills and parts, and closing out a verified record of what was done on site. Shortened to FSM, it runs from request to billable job.

A handover certificate is the document recording that completed work has been formally accepted by the party receiving it, on a stated date, transferring responsibility for the works and starting the contractual clocks that run from acceptance. It records acceptance, not the absence of defects.

Harness inspection is the examination of a safety harness and its lanyards, connectors and energy absorber for damage that would stop it arresting a fall. It combines a tactile and visual pre-use check by the wearer with a recorded detailed inspection by a competent person at set intervals.

A health and safety inspection is a planned examination of a workplace, site or piece of equipment to check that actual conditions match the standards that apply, with the findings recorded so they can be assigned and closed out. It looks at what is true now, not at what might go wrong later.

A HGV daily walkaround check is the inspection a driver carries out on a heavy goods vehicle, and any trailer, before its first journey of the day, to confirm it is safe and roadworthy. DVSA guidance sets out what to check, and the result is recorded whether or not a defect is found.

Inspection management software is the system an organisation uses to plan every inspection that is due, give the inspector a structured form, hold the evidence collected, turn findings into corrective actions and reports, and keep an audit trail of the whole cycle. Its value depends entirely on the quality of what is captured at the point of inspection.

An installation checklist is a fixed, ordered list of the steps and verification points a technician completes and records during an installation. It controls the sequence of work and doubles as the record that proves the job was done correctly, not just finished.

A job card is the shop-floor record of a single job: the sheet or screen that travels with the work and captures what the technician found, did, fitted and timed. The work order authorises the job. The job card records what actually happened on it.

Job completion rate is the share of scheduled jobs finished within their planned visit, calculated as jobs completed divided by jobs scheduled in the same period. It measures schedule reliability, and it is the field service metric most easily improved by changing paperwork rather than performance.

A ladder inspection is a visual check of a ladder or stepladder for defects that would make it unsafe to use. It exists in two forms: a pre-use check by the user at the start of every job, and a periodic detailed inspection by a competent person that is recorded, often shown on a ladder tag.

A LOLER inspection is any check carried out on lifting equipment to satisfy the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 in the UK. The term covers two separate duties: the periodic thorough examination by a competent person, and the pre-use check the operator carries out before each use.

Lone working is any work carried out by someone with no close or direct supervision and nobody immediately on hand to help if something goes wrong. It covers field engineers, drivers, contractors on empty sites, care and housing visitors, and anyone left in a building after hours.

A method statement is a written description of how a specific job will be carried out safely, setting out the sequence of work, the equipment and people involved, and the control measures that the risk assessment for that job identified. It tells the crew how, not just what.

A MEWP pre-use inspection is the operator's own visual and functional check of a mobile elevating work platform (scissor lift, boom or cherry picker) before each shift or each use, recorded as evidence that the machine was safe to operate. It is separate from the six-monthly thorough examination a competent person carries out under LOLER.

Mean time between failures (MTBF) is the average operating time a repairable asset delivers between one failure and the next, found by dividing total uptime by the number of failures. It is the standard reliability measure, and it applies only to assets that get repaired and returned to service.

Mean time to repair (MTTR) is the average time needed to restore a failed asset to working order, found by dividing total repair time by the number of repairs in the same period. It is the standard measure of maintainability, and it is reported under four different definitions.

A no-app inspection is an inspection the person on site completes from a link in their phone's browser, with nothing to install and no account to create. Also called a web-based inspection, it is the form that works when the participant is a customer, tenant, driver or contractor rather than a trained employee.

Parts availability is the share of jobs where the right part is on hand at the moment the work needs it. In field service it only counts at the point of use, on the job, which is why a well stocked central warehouse and a poor first-time fix rate sit together comfortably.

A permit to work is a formal written authorisation allowing a specific high-risk job to start at a specific place and time, issued by a named authorised person only once the hazards are identified, the precautions and isolations are verified in place, and the work party has confirmed it understands them.

Planned maintenance is any maintenance work that is known about, prepared and resourced before it starts, whether the trigger is a routine interval or a fault that has already been found. The defining feature is advance notice and preparation, not the reason for the work.

Plant and machinery is the collective term for the fixed and mobile equipment a business uses to carry out its work, from excavators, cranes and forklifts to compressors, boilers and production lines, as distinct from the buildings that house it. The phrase carries a tax meaning and a safety meaning at once.

Predictive maintenance is maintenance triggered by the measured condition of an asset rather than by a calendar date or a runtime interval, so the work is scheduled from evidence of degradation instead of from a fixed plan. Vibration, thermography, oil analysis or a structured inspection supplies the signal.

A pre-use inspection is the short visual and functional check the user makes on a piece of work equipment before each use or shift, to spot a defect that would make it unsafe. It applies to plant, powered access, forklifts, ladders, harnesses, hand tools and vehicles, and is separate from the periodic inspection a competent person carries out.

Preventive maintenance is work carried out on a fixed time or runtime schedule to slow or catch degradation before an asset fails, with the calendar or the runtime counter deciding when the work is due rather than the measured state of the machine. Filter changes, lubrication and scheduled inspections are typical.

A pre-visit assessment is a structured check carried out before a technician is dispatched, gathering the equipment details, fault evidence and site conditions a planner needs to decide who to send, with what parts, and how urgently. It sits between intake and scheduling.

A PUWER inspection is the inspection of work equipment required by Regulation 6 of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998. It applies where the safety of the equipment depends on how it was installed, or where it is exposed to conditions that cause deterioration, and it must be carried out by a competent person and recorded.

A quality assurance inspection is a planned check that work or product conforms to a specified requirement, carried out at a defined point in the process, by a defined method, and recorded so the result can be relied on afterwards. The specification, not the inspector's judgement, sets the pass mark.

A racking inspection is a documented check of pallet racking and other storage equipment for damage, overloading and misuse, carried out at three levels under HSE guidance HSG76: immediate reporting by staff, a regular visual inspection by a trained person, and an annual expert inspection. Damage is classified green, amber or red to decide what happens to the bay.

Reactive maintenance is repairing or replacing an asset after it has already failed, with no scheduled preventive work carried out beforehand, which means the failure itself decides when the work happens and what it costs. Also called run-to-failure or breakdown maintenance, it is still the dominant mode in industry.

Refurbishment is the work done to return an asset to a defined serviceable standard after use, covering repair, replacement of worn components, and cosmetic reinstatement. It restores an asset to an agreed condition rather than improving it beyond its original specification.

A repeat visit is a return trip to a job the first visit failed to close. It is the direct opposite of a first-time fix, and in most field service operations the single most common cause is mundane: the part the job needed was not on the van when the engineer arrived.

A risk assessment is a structured examination of a task, place or activity to identify what could cause harm, judge how likely and how serious that harm would be, and decide what control measures are needed before the work goes ahead. It is a decision-making process, not a form.

A scaffold inspection is the examination of a scaffold by a competent person before first use, after alteration or any event that could affect its stability, and at intervals of no more than seven days, with a written report. It is separate from the visual check users make before climbing on each day.

Scheduling optimisation is the use of algorithms to assign and sequence field jobs across a workforce so that travel, overtime and missed commitments are minimised, while skills, parts, appointment windows and working hours are all respected. It replaces the manual board with a scored, repeatable plan.

A service contract is an agreement to maintain and repair an asset over a defined period for an agreed fee, instead of charging for each job as it arises. The customer buys availability and a response commitment. The provider takes on the risk of how much work that turns out to be.

A service report is the record a technician produces at the end of a visit, covering what was found, what was done, which parts and labour were used, and the condition the asset was left in. It is written for the customer and for the file somebody reads months later.

A site acceptance test (SAT) is the formal test of a machine, line or system after delivery and installation at the buyer's site, run against an agreed protocol to confirm it performs as specified in its real environment. Passing the SAT usually triggers final payment, the start of the warranty and the handover of responsibility to the buyer.

A site survey is a structured check of a physical location carried out before work is scheduled, recording access, dimensions, existing services, conditions and hazards so that the job can be quoted, resourced and planned accurately. It answers what is actually there, before anyone commits to a date.

A service level agreement is a contractual commitment defining the service a provider will deliver, how performance is measured, and what the customer receives when a commitment is missed. In field service an SLA usually fixes a response time, a resolution time, a coverage window and a remedy.

A snagging list is the itemised record of defects, unfinished items and departures from specification found when near-complete construction or installation work is inspected, written up so each item can be put right and signed off. In the US and Canada the same document is called a punch list.

A statutory inspection is an inspection or examination of equipment that UK law requires, at a set interval or trigger, by a competent person, with a written record. The main regulations are LOLER for lifting equipment, PUWER for work equipment, PSSR for pressure systems and the Electricity at Work Regulations for electrical systems.

A stock condition survey is a structured visual inspection of a social landlord's homes that records the condition and remaining life of each building component, checks compliance with the Decent Homes Standard and hazard ratings, and feeds the long-term investment plan. Most landlords aim to survey every home within a five-year cycle.

Technician utilisation is the share of a technician's available paid hours that are booked to customer work, calculated as billable or job hours divided by total available hours. It measures how full the diary is, not how much of that booked time was actually spent working on the asset.

A thorough examination is the systematic and detailed examination of lifting equipment by a competent person, required under Regulation 9 of the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998. It produces a written report, not a certificate, and is distinct from both routine inspection and servicing.

A truck roll is a single dispatch of a technician and a service vehicle to a customer site to diagnose, repair or install something. Field service teams count truck rolls as a unit of cost, because every trip spends fuel, drive time and a slot on the schedule.

Van stock is the set of parts and consumables an engineer carries in the service vehicle. Also called truck stock, trunk stock or boot stock, it is the only inventory that exists at the moment a job is being worked, which makes it the stock level that decides whether the job closes.

A void inspection is a social landlord's recorded check of a home that is empty, or about to be, between tenancies. The pre-void inspection scopes repairs and recharges before the outgoing tenant leaves; the post-void inspection confirms the completed works meet the lettable standard before keys go to the next tenant.

A work order is the formal record that authorises a specific piece of work on a specific asset, sets out what has to be done, and becomes the evidence that it was completed. It names the asset, the task, the priority, the accountable person, and what the job may consume in labour, parts and cost.

Wrench time is the share of a technician's shift spent with hands on the asset doing the actual repair or maintenance work, calculated as hands-on-tool hours divided by total available hours. In most operations it lands far lower than managers expect.