Minor New Works Planner

Minor New Works Planner Location: UK Remote / Home based The role: OPA are looking to appoint a Minor New Works Planner to take full responsibility for the capture, development, planning, scheduling, monitoring, and control of all planning activities associated with Minor New Works projects across the Oil and Pipelines managed estate. This includes coordinating and developing planned job packages, ensuring effective resource allocation, and maintaining robust project schedules to support the successful delivery of engineering works. This newly created role will take full responsibility for the planning of OPA's assurance programme and improvement works, to ensure the full notification scope is achieved. This includes assisting and coordinating all materials, services, and resources, as well as establishing appropriate scheduling logic between individual operations and tasks to support the safe, efficient, and cost-effective delivery of projects across the OPA estate. Therefore, demonstrable experience of procurement processes is essential, ensuring the effective planning and management of materials so that they are ordered, delivered to site on time, and aligned with the overall project programme. There will be a need to build strong credible working relationships with all internal stakeholders, in particular other members of the project delivery team, operations, maintenance, HSSEQ department, procurement, and other discipline engineering colleagues. Travel to our UK sites will be a regular feature of this role, with some overnight stays. Therefore, a full (preferably clean) driving licence is essential for the successful candidate. There will also be occasional overseas travel when required.

Responsibilities

• Support the Minor New Works Manager and be the OPA Planning Lead for all Minor New Works project planning, providing leadership and guidance for planning / programming requirements.
• Ensure all activities are planned and executed in line with health, safety, and compliance requirements.
• Plan and schedule Minor New Works work orders using the computerised maintenance management system.
• Review maintenance requests, prioritise work and create detailed job plans.
• Maintain and update CMMS records, including asset information, inventory, and assurance schedules.
• Ensure job plans contain the following: Special instructions and planned documentation such as MOC information, QAQC needs, piping schematics etc., required skill crafts and duration, speciality tools or equipment, optional scheduling logic between operations and maintenance, reservation or purchase order for necessary components and forward them to the relevant parties.
• Participate in the management of notification and work order backlog by, reviewing backlog and planning list for duplicates, grouping notifications together that can be planned and worked as a single order that optimises utilisation resources, ensure plans are in place that meet the timing requirements to ensure effective project delivery.
• Prepare KPI reports and provide administrative support to the maintenance department. The candidate: We are looking for an experienced planning professional with a strong background in engineering, infrastructure, maintenance, or major hazard environments, ideally qualified in a relevant engineering discipline, or be qualified by experience within a planning, shutdown, or project function. You will have a proven track record of operating within structured project management frameworks and procedures, with the ability to lead planning activities across multiple projects and sites. Experience acting as a Planning Lead is essential, providing expert guidance and direction on planning, programming, scheduling, and progress monitoring to ensure successful project delivery. The successful candidate will need to have experience in using Primavera P6 or similar planning software, and be proficient in Microsoft Office applications, particularly Excel, Word, and Outlook, and comfortable utilising Computerised Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) such as SAP, Maximo, or equivalent systems. A sound understanding of engineering principles is required, including the ability to read and interpret engineering drawings, specifications, and technical documentation. Experience supporting plant shutdowns, turnarounds, or major maintenance activities would be advantageous. Experience within Major Accident Hazard (MAH) or similarly regulated environments is essential, together with a working knowledge of COMAH, Management of Change (MOC), and CDM Regulations