Guide · Fault reports
Machine fault report template: what the manufacturer needs to know
A fault report is only as useful as what it contains. When an operator tells the manufacturer that a machine has stopped, the service team needs the same handful of details every time — and by phone or email, some of them are usually missing. This guide lists them as a template you can copy into a form or an email, explains why they go missing, and shows how the same report is put together when it starts at a QR plate on the machine.
Updated October 20, 2026
The template: what a complete fault report contains
| Detail | What to write | Why the service team needs it |
|---|---|---|
| Machine type and serial number | The type designation and the serial number exactly as they appear on the nameplate | Decides which manual, which parts list and which build state apply |
| Customer, site and line | Company, plant and the position of the machine on the line | Tells the team where the machine stands and who operates it |
| Symptom | What the machine does or no longer does; the fault code or message on the HMI, word for word | Narrows down the cause before anyone travels |
| When it happened | Date and time of the first occurrence; whether the fault is constant or comes and goes | Separates a single stop from a recurring fault |
| What was happening before | The product or format being run; a changeover, cleaning or maintenance shortly before | Points to a possible trigger |
| What has been tried | The steps already taken and what each of them changed | Avoids repeating them and shows what can be ruled out |
| Photos or video | The HMI screen, the affected station, the damaged part | Shows what a description leaves out |
| State of the machine | Stopped, running at reduced output, or running with the fault | Sets the urgency |
| Contact person | Name and a phone number or email address of someone at the machine | Lets the team ask a question back |
The list is short on purpose. It describes the fault; it does not ask the operator to diagnose it, and it is not a repair instruction.
What an operator may do at the machine is set by the manufacturer’s operating manual and the plant’s own safety rules — not by a report form.
Why reports by phone and email arrive incomplete
- Nobody has the serial number to hand. It is on a nameplate at the machine, not at the desk where the email is written.
- The report passes through several people. The operator tells the shift lead, the shift lead tells maintenance, maintenance calls the manufacturer — and detail is lost at every step.
- A free-text email has no required fields. Whatever the writer does not think of is simply missing.
- Photos travel separately, in a messenger or on somebody’s phone, and never reach the ticket.
- A call is rarely written down word for word, so the fault code becomes “some error on the screen”.
Every gap means a question back to the plant, and the answer has to come from someone standing at the machine.
How to use the template
- As a form. Turn the rows into fields and make the machine, the symptom and one contact detail mandatory.
- As an email template for customers who report by email: the rows become headings to fill in.
- As a call script for your hotline, so that every call records the same details in the same order.
- At the machine. The closer to the nameplate a report starts, the fewer details anyone has to look up.
How the report is put together in Servotag Pro
Servotag Pro starts the report at the machine. The manufacturer attaches a QR plate to every machine; the code opens that machine’s record in the phone’s browser, with no app and no account. The page leads with the troubleshooting the manufacturer has released — the fault report is the quiet second option when that did not clear the fault.
- The machine is already known. Manufacturer, machine type, serial number, customer and site are attached automatically, because the report starts from that machine’s plate.
- Symptom. The operator picks the closest match from the list or describes the fault in their own words.
- Photos and video are added straight from the phone.
- A way back. A name and a phone number or an email address — a report without a phone number and without an email address is not accepted.
- Delivery. The report goes as a structured email to the service inbox and, where configured, as a signed webhook into the system the manufacturer already uses.
- Reference and status. Every report gets a reference and one of three statuses: New, Sent, Closed. When closing it, the service team can log it as service work in the machine’s history with one click.
Some rows of the template have no field of their own in Servotag Pro: when the fault first occurred, what was running before and what has already been tried belong in the description. Nothing is read from the machine — Servotag Pro has no connection to machine control.
Worked example: the template filled in
Fictional example from the demo workspace: Packline Systems is an invented machine builder, Nordfeld Foods an invented customer.
| Detail | Entry | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Machine type and serial number | PackPro FX400, FX400-02841 | Attached automatically from the plate |
| Customer and site | Nordfeld Foods, Bremen | Attached automatically from the plate |
| Symptom | The closest match from the list, plus the message on the HMI copied word for word | The operator |
| When, before, tried | Written into the description | The operator |
| Photos | One photo of the HMI | The operator |
| Contact person | Name and phone number of the operator | The operator |
The report reaches Packline’s service inbox. From there its status moves from New to Sent to Closed. Logged as service work when it is closed, the report then becomes part of the service history of the machine.