An asset incident is an unplanned event on a piece of equipment — a breakdown, leak, jam, collision or fire. The Asset Incidents module lets you capture the event the moment it happens, link the repair work, and drive it to closure through a structured CAPA (Corrective And Preventive Action) cycle aligned with ISO 9001 and the ISO 14224 reliability standard.

Closing the loop with CAPA

From the incident page you record a root-cause analysis and a ledger of actions — containment, corrective and preventive — each with an owner, a due date and an effectiveness check. This is the discipline that turns a one-off repair into a lasting improvement.

Enabling the module

Asset Incidents is an optional module available on the Starter tier and above. An administrator turns it on under Company Settings, then Modules. Once enabled, an Incidents entry appears in the main navigation and anyone with the right permission can report an incident.

Reported

The event is captured with its description, photos and severity.

Contained

Immediate action has stopped the situation getting worse.

Root cause analysis

The cause is being investigated with 5-Why or Ishikawa.

Corrective

Short-term fixes are being applied.

Preventive

Long-term actions to stop recurrence are assigned.

Monitoring

The effectiveness of the actions is being watched.

Verified

The actions are confirmed effective.

Closed

The loop is complete and the incident is archived.

The incident lifecycle

Each incident moves through a defined set of statuses so everyone can see where it stands.

Reported

The event is captured with its description, photos and severity.

Contained

Immediate action has stopped the situation getting worse.

Root cause analysis

The cause is being investigated with 5-Why or Ishikawa.

Corrective

Short-term fixes are being applied.

Preventive

Long-term actions to stop recurrence are assigned.

Monitoring

The effectiveness of the actions is being watched.

Verified

The actions are confirmed effective.

Closed

The loop is complete and the incident is archived.

On the asset's page

Every incident you log against an asset also appears on that asset's own page, under its Incidents tab — alongside its work orders and inspections. That is where you look to spot a device that keeps failing: a smoke detector that repeatedly goes into alarm, or a fire extinguisher discharged more than once. Safety incidents appear there too, with any restricted details still hidden from users who lack permission to see them. Each row carries the incident type, its status and its severity, so a failure mode that keeps coming back on the same device is visible without opening a single incident.

Low

Minor, no production impact

Medium

Manageable impact

High

Significant impact, limited redundancy

Critical

Halts production, or a safety or environmental risk

Severity

Severity drives the priority of any work order created from the incident and signals how urgently it needs attention.

Low

Minor, no production impact

Medium

Manageable impact

High

Significant impact, limited redundancy

Critical

Halts production, or a safety or environmental risk

Asset incident

The equipment-reliability angle: what broke, the damage, the root cause, and the corrective and preventive actions on the asset.

HSE incident

The safety angle: injuries, near-misses, witnesses, and the corrective actions required for people and environment (ISO 45001 / OSHA).

Asset incident vs HSE incident

The two modules answer different questions and can coexist for the same event. Report both when an event has a safety dimension: a fire, for example, is recorded as an HSE incident for the people-safety angle and as an asset incident for the equipment-reliability angle.

Asset incident

The equipment-reliability angle: what broke, the damage, the root cause, and the corrective and preventive actions on the asset.

HSE incident

The safety angle: injuries, near-misses, witnesses, and the corrective actions required for people and environment (ISO 45001 / OSHA).

When to use an asset incident

Use an asset incident for an unplanned equipment event you want to investigate, not just fix. If you only need a repair, a work order on its own is enough. Reach for an incident when you also need to record what happened, analyse why, and prevent it from recurring.

• A motor overheats and trips during a production run
• A hydraulic line bursts and floods a work area
• A conveyor jams and damages product
• A pump motor catches fire

When equipment fails unexpectedly — say a pump motor catches fire — several FreeMaint features come into play: asset incidents, work orders, HSE incidents and work permits. This guide shows the recommended order so every action is captured once, in the right place, with nothing duplicated.

Automatic vs manual work orders

Automatic work-order creation is an opt-in company setting and is off by default. With it on, every reported incident produces exactly one linked work order, and reporting the same incident again never creates a second one. With it off, you create the work order yourself and link it to the incident. Either way, aim for one work order per incident.

How to avoid duplicate or overlapping records

• One incident per event. Let it spawn the single linked work order rather than creating both by hand.
• Use intervention requests only for the intake path — when someone reports a problem that a planner then turns into a work order. For an incident you witnessed on an asset, go straight to an asset incident, not a request.
• An HSE incident and an asset incident can both exist for the same event, but only one work order performs the physical repair. Link that work order to the record that drove it and cross-reference the other.

The golden rule: one event, one chain

Record the event once as the parent record and let it drive the work that follows. The asset incident is the parent; the work order is the execution. When you link them, the incident carries the story and the work order carries the repair — you never type the same thing twice.

Where intervention requests fit

An intervention request is for reporting a problem you want someone to action — typically from an operator or a requester. It can be flagged as an emergency, which (when your workflow allows it) auto-approves it and creates an emergency work order on the spot. Use requests for the report-it-to-someone path; use asset incidents for events you are investigating on a specific asset.

Recommended workflow (pump motor fire)

1. {"title":"Make it safe and log the safety side","description":"If there is fire, injury or a near-miss, raise an HSE incident first — injured persons, witnesses, immediate measures. This is the people-and-environment record."}
2. {"title":"Report the asset incident","description":"On the affected asset, create an incident: what the asset was doing, the damage, photos, severity. This becomes the single source of truth for the equipment event."}
3. {"title":"Let the incident create the work order","description":"Turn on automatic work-order creation so reporting the incident spawns one linked corrective work order. You do not create a separate work order by hand — the link prevents duplicates."}
4. {"title":"Take the asset down","description":"Set the asset status to Down so downtime starts counting. Completing the work order restores it to Operational."}
5. {"title":"Protect high-risk work","description":"For hot work after a fire, or electrical work, attach a work permit and a lockout/tagout to the work order. The job cannot start until the permit is approved and the lockout is verified."}
6. {"title":"Do the repair on the work order","description":"Log time, parts, the failure category and the root cause. Mark the maintenance type Emergency or Corrective so it feeds reliability metrics."}
7. {"title":"Close the loop on the incident","description":"Back on the incident, complete the root-cause analysis and the corrective and preventive actions, then move it through Monitoring, Verified and Closed."}