# Equipment Failure Investigation Report Template

> Source: https://netray.co/tools/equipment-failure-investigation-report-template
> Publisher: Netray (netray.co), AI and integration engineering for ERP and manufacturing systems.
> Section: Free Tools

## Short answer

A structured report for investigating an equipment breakdown: what failed, evidence, root causes, corrective actions and sign-off.

## Category

maintenance

## Industry

Manufacturing

## Audience

- Maintenance manager
- Reliability engineer
- Maintenance supervisor

## Tool

**Kind:** template

**Output:** document

**Fields:**

#### Company or plant

**Key:** company

**Type:** text

**Default:** Acme Precision Ltd, Plant 2

#### Report number

**Key:** report_no

**Type:** text

**Default:** EFI-2026-041

#### Date of failure

**Key:** date

**Type:** date

**Default:** 2026-10-12

#### Asset and tag number

**Key:** asset

**Type:** text

**Default:** Hydraulic press HP-07

#### Location or line

**Key:** location

**Type:** text

**Default:** Press shop, Line 3

#### Downtime (hours)

**Key:** downtime

**Type:** text

**Default:** 9.5

#### Consequence

**Key:** severity

**Type:** select

**Options:**

- Safety or environmental
- Production loss
- Quality impact
- Repair cost only
- Near miss

**Default:** Production loss

#### What happened

**Key:** event

**Type:** textarea

**Default:** The press stopped mid-cycle with a hydraulic pressure fault and an oil leak at the main cylinder gland. Operators isolated the machine and called maintenance.

#### Evidence collected

**Key:** evidence

**Type:** textarea

**Default:** Photos of the gland, failed seal retained, hydraulic oil sample sent for analysis, controller alarm log, last PM record and operating hours since last seal change.

#### Root cause

**Key:** cause

**Type:** textarea

**Default:** Seal wear caused by contaminated oil. The return line filter bypass had been opened during a previous repair and was not reset, so unfiltered oil circulated.

#### Corrective and preventive actions

**Key:** actions

**Type:** textarea

**Default:** Replace the seal and flush the system, reset the filter bypass, add an oil cleanliness check to the monthly PM, and add the bypass state to the shift start checklist.

#### Investigation lead

**Key:** owner

**Type:** text

**Default:** A. Kumar, Maintenance Engineer

**Blocks:**

#### Equipment Failure Investigation Report

**Body:** Company: {{company}}
Report number: {{report_no}}
Date of failure: {{date}}
Asset: {{asset}}
Location: {{location}}
Downtime: {{downtime}} hours
Consequence: {{severity}}
Investigation lead: {{owner}}

#### 1. Description of the event

**Body:** {{event}}

#### 2. Evidence collected

**Body:** {{evidence}}

#### 3. Root cause

**Body:** {{cause}}

#### 4. Failure timeline

**Table:**

**Columns:**

- Time
- Event
- Source

**Rows:**

**1:** Last known good operation

**1:** First sign or alarm

**1:** Failure and stop

**1:** Repair started

**1:** Returned to service

#### 5. Contributing factors

**Table:**

**Columns:**

- Category
- Finding
- Evidence

**Rows:**

**0:** Design or specification

**0:** Operation

**0:** Maintenance

**0:** Spares and materials

**0:** Environment

#### 6. Corrective and preventive actions

**Body:** {{actions}}

#### 7. Action tracking

**Table:**

**Columns:**

- Action
- Owner
- Due date
- Status

**Rows:**

#### Approvals

**Signatures:**

- Investigation lead
- Maintenance manager
- Production manager

**Notes:** This is a general-purpose starting point. Adapt it to your site procedures, and follow your safety and incident reporting rules where a failure involves injury, environmental release or regulatory notification. Keep the five whys or a fishbone attached as supporting evidence.

## Content

**Intro:** A short, consistent failure report stops the same breakdown from happening twice. This template covers the event, evidence, root cause, contributing factors and tracked actions, and exports to PDF or Word.

**Sections:**

#### How to use it

**Body:** Fill in the asset, date, downtime and consequence, then describe the event, the evidence you secured, the root cause and the actions. The document also includes blank tables for the failure timeline, contributing factors by category and action tracking, which you can complete in the exported file. Print it, attach it to the work order, or save it with the asset history.

**Bullets:**

- Collect evidence before cleaning up: failed parts, photos, logs and samples.
- State the cause as a mechanism, not a person or a vague phrase like operator error.
- Give every action an owner and a due date.

#### What a good report contains

**Body:** The strongest reports separate what happened from why. The event section is factual. The root cause names the underlying condition that, if removed, would stop recurrence, such as a missing filter reset step in a procedure. Contributing factors cover design, operation, maintenance, materials and environment, which prevents the habit of stopping at the first answer. Actions must include a preventive element beyond fixing the part.

#### Choosing which failures to report

**Body:** Not every stoppage needs a full report. Set a threshold, for example any failure with safety consequence, downtime above a set number of hours, repeat failure of the same asset, or repair cost over a limit. For smaller events, a five whys on the work order may be enough. A threshold keeps the effort on failures that teach something and avoids paperwork fatigue.

#### Tying it to your systems

**Body:** Link the report number to the maintenance work order and the failure code in your ERP or CMMS, such as damage, cause and activity codes in SAP PM notifications. Consistent coding lets you trend failure causes by asset class later, which is where the report pays for itself. Review open actions in a regular reliability meeting until they close.

**Cta:** If you want failure codes and reports analyzed across your ERP history, Netray can help summarize recurring causes by asset class. The template is free to use as is.

**Faq:**

#### How is this different from a five whys?

**Answer:** Five whys is a technique for finding cause. This report is the record that holds the event, evidence, cause, contributing factors and actions. Attach the five whys or fishbone to it as supporting analysis.

#### Who should sign the report?

**Answer:** At minimum the investigation lead and the maintenance manager. Add production or safety managers when the failure affected output or people, so actions have an owner outside maintenance too.

#### How soon should it be completed?

**Answer:** Capture the event and evidence the same day, because evidence disappears quickly. Complete root cause and actions within days to a couple of weeks depending on complexity and lab results.

#### Can I use it for a safety incident?

**Answer:** Use it for the equipment portion, but follow your site's formal incident investigation and reporting procedures, which may have legal timelines and required formats.

## Search terms

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