What this is
What is a bad actor report?
What is a bad actor report?
A bad actor report is a record used in KnowMaintain that flags an asset consuming a disproportionate share of maintenance effort or downtime. It is built against ISO 14224 and forms part of the Reliability and Predictive Maintenance programme, ranking assets on cost or downtime rather than describing failures in isolation.
When is a bad actor report completed?
It is completed at the moment the ranking exercise happens against the monthly reliability data, not reconstructed weeks later from memory. It covers a defined period, typically a month, and is compiled by reliability engineering rather than by the shift that experienced the failure.
What makes an asset a bad actor rather than just an asset that failed?
A single failure does not make an asset a bad actor. The report exists because ranking, by downtime hours, repair cost, total cost of failure or failure frequency, shows an asset sitting disproportionately high against its peers over a sustained period, which is a different and stronger claim than one bad week.
Scope
When is a bad actor report required?
This record is one step in a larger programme. Using it for work that belongs to a neighbouring template produces records that are hard to report on later.
Use this template when
- The monthly or periodic reliability data has been pulled and an asset sits disproportionately high on cost, downtime or frequency against its peers
- A new record is needed; each one gets its own ID in the form BA-2026-000
- You are running the Reliability and Predictive Maintenance programme and this is one of its ranking steps
- A linked record needs this one to exist, most often an RCM study or FMEA raised because of the ranking
- Reliability engineering needs a dated, ranked view to justify redirecting effort towards one asset over another
Do not use it for
- Equipment Failure Report, which records that an asset has failed and stopped or degraded production, for a single event rather than a period ranking.
- Failure Mode Record, which records how an asset failed using standard failure mode codes, without ranking that asset against the rest of the site.
- Repeat Failure Review, which looks at why the same failure keeps recurring on one asset rather than ranking assets against each other.
- Repair Record, which records what was actually done to fix the asset, including parts replaced and settings changed.
- Anything outside KnowMaintain, which belongs in the workspace that owns that process.
Compliance mapping
Which ISO 14224 requirements does this satisfy?
ISO 14224 governs how failure and maintenance data is collected and classified so it can be compared across assets; the sections below map its expectations onto the form.
| Clause | Requirement | Where it lands |
|---|---|---|
| ISO 14224 Clause 6 — equipment classification and boundary | The asset under review must be identified against a defined equipment boundary before its data is compared to any other asset. | Header |
| ISO 14224 Clause 7 — failure and maintenance data | Downtime, repair cost, MTBF, MTTR and availability must be captured in comparable units so ranking is not distorted by inconsistent recording. | Performance |
| ISO 14224 Annex A — failure mode taxonomy | Failure modes recorded against the asset should use a controlled vocabulary rather than free text, so occurrences can be aggregated across the period. | Dominant failure modes |
| ISO 14224 Clause 5 — data quality and collection principles | A trend judgement against the prior period is only meaningful if the same ranking basis and boundary were used both times. | Performance |
| ISO 14224 Clause 4 — general principles of reliability data use | Data exists to support a decision, so the current maintenance strategy and whether it is appropriate for the observed failure pattern must be assessed, not just recorded. | Assessment |
| ISO 14224 Clause 4 — general principles of reliability data use | Where analysis is inconclusive from the data alone, design limitation, operating practice and end-of-life should be considered as contributing factors. | Assessment |
| ISO 14224 Clause 7 — failure and maintenance data | The ranking must close with a stated action, and where an action is raised, a reference and an owner so the trail does not end at the ranking. | Recommendation |
What it does not cover
- A general maintenance history query, which lists work orders chronologically but never ranks assets against each other by cost, downtime or frequency.
- A verbal escalation in a shift handover, which names the trouble asset but leaves no dated record of the ranking basis or the period it covers.
- A PM compliance report, which shows whether scheduled tasks were completed, not whether the asset is disproportionately consuming effort relative to its peers.
- A single equipment failure report, which documents one event well but says nothing about whether that asset is a repeat offender across the period.
- An informal spreadsheet kept by one engineer, which may rank correctly but is not linked to the asset register, the FMEA or the RCM study it should feed.
Global
Bad Actor Report requirements by country
ISO 14224 is an international data standard rather than a legal instrument, so its influence shows up differently depending on the regulatory and commercial context a site sits inside.
ISO 14224
A voluntary, cross-industry reliability data standard written for comparing failure data across assets and sites.
Its classification discipline is what makes a ranking defensible outside the plant that produced it, including to a parent company or insurer.
SMRP best practices
US reliability practice leans on SMRP metrics, MTBF, MTTR, availability, backlog, as the common language between maintenance and finance.
A report using these same metrics slots directly into an existing US scorecard without translation.
ISO 55000 series (asset management)
UK and European sites more often frame reliability work inside a documented asset management system, where rankings roll up into a plan.
The linked RCM study or FMEA reference is what an ISO 55001 auditor asks for, not the ranking alone.
How to complete it
How to complete a bad actor report, step by step
Filling in every field is mechanical; the judgement calls below are what decide whether the ranking actually redirects effort correctly.
Downtime hours, repair cost, total cost of failure and failure frequency each surface a different asset. Choosing the basis that happens to flatter or condemn a particular asset, rather than the basis the business question calls for, quietly defeats the purpose of ranking at all.
A trend marked worsening should prompt a check of whether the ranking basis and boundary were held constant against the prior period; a spike caused by a data or classification change is not the same as a genuine deterioration in the asset.
Immediate action against a single bad month is as much a misjudgement as continue monitoring against a sustained decline. The recommendation should track how many periods the asset has held its ranking, not just the latest snapshot.
These three questions are answered defensively, because each implicates a different function, engineering, operations or capital planning. A report that always answers no to all three across every asset is not being read critically.
What auditors find
Most common bad actor report findings
The failures below recur across sites running this record and each one breaks the chain between ranking and action.
| Finding | Clause | What fixes it |
|---|---|---|
| Ranking basis is left as whichever one the reporting tool defaults to, rather than chosen for the question at hand. | ISO 14224 Clause 4 | State the ranking basis explicitly before entering figures, and require reliability engineering to justify it against the period's business question. |
| Failure modes are recorded as free text in comments rather than the controlled picklist, breaking aggregation across periods. | ISO 14224 Annex A | Restrict dominant failure modes to the controlled list and route anything missing to a request for a new code, not a free-text workaround. |
| An asset is flagged repeatedly across periods with the same recommendation, continue monitoring, and no escalation. | ISO 14224 Clause 7 | Add a rule that three consecutive periods in the top rank on the same basis forces escalation to increased monitoring or corrective work. |
| Design limitation, operating practice and end-of-life are answered no as a formality without evidence behind the answer. | ISO 14224 Clause 4 | Require a one-line justification whenever any of the three assessment questions is answered no. |
| An action required of yes is recorded with no CAPA ID and no owner populated. | ISO 14224 Clause 7 | Make CAPA ID and action owner mandatory whenever action required is yes, and block sign-off until both are present. |
| The estimated annual saving is populated with a round, unjustified figure that never gets checked against the next period's actuals. | ISO 14224 Clause 4 | Carry the estimated saving forward and compare it against the realised change in cost or downtime for that asset. |
Case in point
Case in point: the press that was never actually the worst asset
A packing line press was the subject of corridor conversation for months as the site's worst performer, and every bad actor report for two quarters named it top on failure frequency. Re-running the same period on total cost of failure instead put a filling machine, far fewer but much longer stoppages, well ahead, and it had never once been flagged.
The press kept nagging because it was noisy and visible on the floor; the filling machine's downtime accumulated quietly overnight when production loss was cheapest to overlook. Only running both bases side by side, rather than defaulting to frequency every period, surfaced the asset actually costing the site the most.
The template
The template, field by field
The form exactly as it installs. Every field, option, score and conditional rule is editable, and the links to other templates come with it.
5 sections
- Reference
- MNT-020
- Archetype
- Record
- Record ID
- BA-2026-000
- Scoring
- Cost and downtime rank
- Direction
- High is bad
- Singleton
- No
- Basis
- ISO 14224
- Links
- Links Asset
- Tags
- Maintenance, Reliability
- Sections
- 5
- Fields
- 48
- Follow up fields
- 3
- Repeating sections
- 1
- Links out
- 5
Header
14 fieldsReport ID*
Auto sequence. Format BA-2026-0000.
The record's own ID. Other templates point at this value.
Status*
Drives who this goes to next.
- Planned2 pts
- In progress2 pts
- Complete3 pts
- Deferred0 pts
- Open0 pts
- Closed3 pts
- Overdue0 pts
Date and Time*
Raised By*
Site*
Site ID*
Format SITE-000.
Links to FDN-001 Site ID
Area
The area within the site.
Exact Location
Drop a pin for anything hard to find.
Asset*
Asset ID*
Format AST-0000.
Links to FDN-002 Asset ID
A Few Assets Cause Most Of The Pain
Typically 20 percent of assets account for 80 percent of downtime and cost. This report finds them so effort goes where it pays.
Period From*
Period To*
Ranking Basis*
Downtime hours, repair cost, total cost of failure or failure frequency.
Performance
12 fieldsFailures In Period*
Total Downtime Hours*
Rank On Site*
Repair Cost
Production Loss Value
Total Cost Of Failure*
MTBF Hours
MTTR Hours
Availability Percent
Trend Versus Last Period*
- Improving3 pts
- Stable2 pts
- Worsening0 pts
Asset Criticality*
Asset Age Years
Dominant failure modes
Repeats3 fieldsFailure Mode*
Occurrences*
Percent Of Downtime
Assessment
6 fieldsCurrent Maintenance Strategy*
- Condition based4 pts
- Time based preventive3 pts
- Run to failure by design2 pts
- Run to failure by default0 pts
Strategy Appropriate*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
PM Compliance On This Asset
Design Limitation Suspected*
- No3 pts
- Possibly1 pt
- Yes0 pts
Operating Practice Contributing*
- No3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- Yes0 pts
Approaching End Of Life*
- No3 pts
- Approaching1 pt
- Beyond0 pts
Recommendation
13 fieldsRecommended Action*
RCM study, redesign, replace, change operating practice, improve PM or accept and monitor.
- Continue monitoring3 pts
- Increase monitoring frequency2 pts
- Plan corrective work1 pt
- Immediate action0 pts
Estimated Cost
Estimated Annual Saving
RCM Study ID
Links to MNT-050 Study ID
FMEA ID
Links to MNT-049 Assessment ID
Action Required*
Raise the action record, then enter its reference here.
- No2 pts
- Yes0 pts
Priority
- High0 pts
- Medium1 pt
- Low3 pts
CAPA ID
Format CAPA-2026-00000.
Links to FDN-014 CAPA ID
Action Owner
Reliability*
Signature*
Maintenance Manager*
Second Signature*
MNT-020 · record IDs look like BA-2026-000 · Links Asset
Open in KnowellaRun it with agents
From a document you fill in to a programme that runs itself
The form is the easy part. Keeping the ranking current, routing escalations to the right owner and holding the linked FMEA or RCM study together is the work that actually slips.
Holds the bad actor library against the asset register, recalculates the ranking each period and keeps the link to any FMEA or RCM study it triggers intact.
Feeds production loss value and downtime hours from the floor into the ranking so the cost side of the report is not reconstructed from memory after the fact.
Flags where a bad actor's failure pattern is also driving a quality deviation, so the same asset is not chased separately by two teams working from different data.
Coordinates the crew across the ranking, the assessment and the linked action, rolling exceptions into one view and holding every write for your approval before it touches a record.
This template lives in KnowMaintain — asset maintenance. Work orders, planned maintenance, calibration, reliability and shutdowns.
Meet KnowMaintain→Glossary
Bad Actor Report definitions and key terms
- Bad actor
- An asset that ranks disproportionately high against its peers on a chosen basis, cost, downtime or frequency, over a sustained period, rather than one that has simply failed once.
- MTBF
- Mean time between failures. The average operating time an asset runs before a failure, used to judge whether reliability is improving or worsening period on period.
- Total cost of failure
- The combined repair cost and production loss value attributed to an asset's failures in a period, used as one possible ranking basis alongside downtime and frequency.
- Run to failure by default
- A maintenance strategy applied not by deliberate choice but because no strategy was ever set, distinct from run to failure by design where the decision was made intentionally.
- ISO 14224
- An international standard for collecting and exchanging reliability and maintenance data for equipment, giving a controlled vocabulary so failure data compares across assets and sites.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about bad actor report
What is the bad actor report template based on?+
It is built against ISO 14224, an international standard for collecting and classifying reliability and maintenance data so it can be compared across assets and sites, widely used wherever equipment performance needs a common vocabulary.
What sections does the bad actor report contain?+
There are 5 sections: header, performance, dominant failure modes, assessment, recommendation. Together they hold 48 fields, 30 of which are required.
How often is a bad actor report raised?+
A new record is raised at the point the ranking exercise runs against a period's reliability data, typically monthly. Each one is given an ID in the form BA-2026-000, so it can be traced and referenced from other records.
Which programme does the bad actor report belong to?+
It is part of Reliability and Predictive Maintenance, which sets maintenance intervals by observed failure behaviour rather than by the calendar.
How is a bad actor report scored?+
Scoring is a cost and downtime rank, where a high rank is bad. The basis for the rank, downtime hours, repair cost, total cost of failure or failure frequency, must be stated explicitly because it changes which asset comes out on top.
Can the bad actor report template be changed?+
Yes. Every field, option, score and conditional rule is editable, and the links to other templates come with it. Most teams install it as it is, run it for a cycle, then adjust the ranking basis and thresholds to fit what they see.
Keep going
Related templates and programmes
Industries this is written for
Programmes this belongs to
Used together in Reliability and Predictive Maintenance
Root Cause Analysis
Finds out why something happened rather than who was involved
Equipment Failure Report
Records that an asset has failed and stopped or degraded production
Failure Mode Record
Records how an asset failed, using standard failure mode codes rather than free text
Repair Record
Records what was actually done to fix the asset, including parts replaced and settings changed
Temporary Repair Record
Records a repair that is not permanent, with an expiry date and a plan for the proper fix
Repeat Failure Review
Reviews an asset that has failed the same way more than once
More in Breakdowns
Equipment Failure Report
Records that an asset has failed and stopped or degraded production
Failure Mode Record
Records how an asset failed, using standard failure mode codes rather than free text
Repair Record
Records what was actually done to fix the asset, including parts replaced and settings changed
Temporary Repair Record
Records a repair that is not permanent, with an expiry date and a plan for the proper fix
Repeat Failure Review
Reviews an asset that has failed the same way more than once
Production Impact Record
Records what the failure cost in lost output, scrap and late orders
Written and reviewed by
Siddarth Singh
Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Knowella
Certified Safety Professional and industrial and systems engineer with more than a decade inside food supply chain, freight and manufacturing operations. This page was written against the current text of the standards it cites, not against secondary summaries of them.
- Certified Safety Professional (CSP), Board of Certified Safety Professionals
- MBA, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
- MS and BS, The Ohio State University, Industrial and Systems Engineering
- Six Sigma Black Belt
Sources and last review. Reviewed 16 August 2026 against:
- ISO 14224 — Petroleum, petrochemical and natural gas industries: collection and exchange of reliability and maintenance data for equipment
- ISO 14224 Annex A — Failure mode taxonomy
- SAE JA1012 — A Guide to the Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM) Standard
- ISO 55001 — Asset management: management systems, requirements
This page is general guidance, not legal advice. Confirm requirements with your jurisdiction’s regulator.