A system for a construction machinery workshop should deliver history per unit, cost per order, machine downtime, parts consumed, preventive versus corrective maintenance, and productivity per technician. If those reports live apart from inventory and invoicing, you end up reconciling by hand. Here’s which ones matter, how to read them, and what SITIC Software offers as an ERP for heavy equipment distributors and workshops.
What maintenance reports does a heavy equipment workshop need?
It needs reports that answer three questions: how much each machine costs, how long it sits idle, and which part or technician explains the expense. These are the eight worth demanding:
- Complete service history per unit, with dates, failures, and parts replaced.
- Cost per work order, with labor and parts shown separately.
- Accumulated cost per unit and per machine-hour.
- Most consumed parts by model and by period.
- Repair time by order and by failure type.
- Upcoming services by hours of use or odometer.
- Ratio of preventive to corrective maintenance.
- Productivity per technician: billed hours versus hours worked.
If your operation has several branches, add a ninth: a performance comparison between them. A useful tenth is open orders with parts still waiting to be issued.
How do you measure maintenance cost per unit and per machine-hour?
Add up labor, parts, and outside services from all of a unit’s orders, and divide that total by the operating hours for the period. The result is your cost per machine-hour.
Take a hypothetical example with a backhoe. If it accumulated 40,000 pesos in orders over a quarter and worked 400 hours, its maintenance cost is 100 pesos per hour. Compared with another backhoe of the same model that costs 160 per hour, you already know which one to check first.
For the calculation to be reliable, the system has to read the direct cost of each order, not capture it separately. SITIC Software shows the real cost of each work order before invoicing, and that feeds the accumulated total per unit.
What’s the difference between preventive and corrective maintenance in the reports?
Preventive maintenance is scheduled by hours, kilometers, or dates before anything fails. Corrective maintenance comes when the machine has already stopped. In the report, each order should carry a type label so they can be separated.
With that label you get a ratio that says a lot about the workshop. If most of the spending on a wheel loader is corrective, scheduled services are probably being skipped. If preventive dominates and failures drop, the calendar is working.
- Review the ratio by unit and by model, not just overall.
- Compare the average cost of a preventive order with a corrective one.
- Check that the system flags upcoming services in advance, so you don’t depend on someone’s memory.
In SITIC Software, quotes, maintenance services, and warranties carry assigned dates and owners, which helps you follow up on each scheduled service.
How do you know how long a machine sits idle in the workshop?
Measure the time between the unit’s arrival and its delivery, and break it down into stages: diagnosis, waiting for parts, repair, and delivery. The dead time is almost never in the repair, but in waiting for parts or authorization.
That’s why a useful report isn’t just a total number of days. It should show what status the order was stuck in. If an excavator spent four days waiting on a hydraulic seal, the problem is in purchasing, not with the technicians.
SITIC Software lets you see the status of each unit, inspections, labor and assigned technicians, and parts ordered and issued. That visibility keeps you from finding out when the unit has already been stopped for 48 hours and the customer has called twice.
How do you tie parts consumption and labor to each work order?
Every part that leaves the warehouse should be charged against a specific order, and every technician hour should be recorded on that same order. That way the real cost sits in a single document and nothing gets lost between the shelf and the invoice.
When inventory and workshop are separate systems, the classic problem shows up: the part went out, but nobody charged for it. To avoid that, ask for these controls:
- Parts issued only with an order number.
- Receipts and issues recorded on the spot.
- Barcodes to speed up issuing.
- Part cost and sale price visible on the order.
SITIC Software integrates inventory control with the workshop: receipts and issues are recorded on the spot, and the system offers purchase suggestions based on demand.
Is maintenance-only software enough, or is a full ERP better?
It depends on whether your workshop is part of a business that also buys, sells, and invoices. If you only need to schedule services, a maintenance-focused tool may be enough. If your workshop sells parts, handles warranties, and closes the books, an ERP keeps you from entering the same thing twice.
There are maintenance-focused tools, such as Fracttal, which presents itself as a CMMS with AI, Tractian, and MaintainX, the latter described as a mobile work order and maintenance platform. They handle asset and order management well.
An industry ERP like SITIC Software adds what surrounds the workshop: purchasing, inventory, sales, and accounting. The real margin on a service only shows when labor, parts, and warranties reach the same invoice together.
10-point checklist for evaluating any software
- Unit history you can look up in seconds.
- Cost per order with labor and parts shown separately.
- Cost per machine-hour.
- Preventive and corrective label on each order.
- Alerts for upcoming services by hours or odometer.
- Downtime broken down by stage.
- Parts issues tied to the order.
- Productivity per technician.
- Connected invoicing and accounting.
- Online reports, without waiting for month-end close.
What does this look like in SITIC Software?
SITIC Software brings workshop, parts, sales, and administration together in a single system designed for heavy equipment. It isn’t a generic ERP that’s been adapted, and it has more than 27 years of experience. Among others, it serves construction machinery distributors; you can see its solution for construction.
With a wheel loader in service, the flow goes like this: the order opens with the unit and its history, the technician records hours, the warehouse issues parts against that order, the cost is calculated, and the charge is invoiced from the same system.
If you want to see how it works with your workshop or distributor’s operation, request a demo of SITIC Software on its diagnostic page, at no cost and with no commitment, or message us on WhatsApp.