Maintenance Planner

Maintenance Tech/ Planner

Department: Maintenance / Operations
Reports To: Maintenance Manager or Maintenance Supervisor or Plant Manager
Location: Clarksville, TX

Position Summary

The Maintenance Planner is responsible for planning and preparing maintenance work to ensure maintenance activities can be completed safely, efficiently, and with minimal impact to production.

The position serves as the link between maintenance, operations, purchasing, and other supporting departments by developing clearly defined work orders, identifying required labor and resources, coordinating parts and materials, maintaining preventive maintenance programs, and managing the maintenance work backlog.

The Maintenance Planner focuses on both future planned work and day-to-day emergency response, allowing maintenance technicians and supervisors to execute work with the necessary parts, tools, information, and job scope available before work begins. This division between planning future work and handling current emergencies is also consistent with internal maintenance-planning material. 

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Maintenance Planning

• Organize/catalog all parts inventory
• Review incoming maintenance requests and determine the scope of work required.
• Develop detailed work orders with clear job descriptions and expected work steps.
• Identify required labor, skills, tools, equipment, parts, materials, permits, and supporting documentation.
• Estimate labor hours required to complete planned maintenance activities.
• Conduct field inspections and equipment walkdowns when necessary to properly scope work as well as confirming work performed meets operator / plant floor satisfaction.

• Identify equipment manuals, drawings, procedures, safety information, and other documentation required by technicians.
• Prepare work so technicians can begin the job with minimal delays caused by missing information, materials, or resources.

Preventive Maintenance

• Develop, maintain, and continuously improve preventive maintenance (PM) procedures.
• Review manufacturer recommendations and equipment history when developing PM tasks.
• Ensure PM instructions clearly identify inspection points, lubrication requirements, adjustments, measurements, replacement criteria, and other required activities.
• Review completed PM work for opportunities to improve task instructions and effectiveness.
• Assist with establishing appropriate PM frequencies for plant equipment.

CMMS / MaintainX Administration

• Create and maintain equipment records and maintenance work orders within the facility’s CMMS.
• Maintain accurate equipment hierarchy, asset information, procedures, checklists, and supporting documentation.
• Attach manuals, photos, drawings, procedures, and other relevant information to work orders when appropriate.
• Maintain the planned-work backlog and identify work that is ready to be scheduled.
• Review completed work orders for documentation quality and completeness.

Parts and Materials

• Determine parts and materials required for planned maintenance work.
• Verify availability before work is released for scheduling when practical.
• Coordinate with purchasing, storeroom personnel, vendors, and maintenance personnel regarding required materials.
• Identify critical spare-part requirements based on equipment needs and maintenance history.
• Document correct part numbers and equipment associations within the CMMS.

Scheduling Support

• Maintain a backlog of properly planned work that is ready for scheduling.
• Provide the Maintenance Supervisor or Scheduler with accurate estimates of labor, duration, resources, parts, and equipment requirements.
• Coordinate with production and operations to identify equipment availability and potential maintenance windows.
• Help identify work appropriate for planned shutdowns, weekends, or other scheduled downtime.

Reliability and Continuous Improvement

• Review recurring equipment failures and maintenance history.
• Identify opportunities to improve PM procedures and planned-maintenance activities.
• Work with maintenance technicians to capture equipment knowledge and incorporate lessons learned into future work plans.
• Improve job plans based on technician feedback and actual work performed.
• Support efforts to increase planned versus reactive maintenance.
• Assist with equipment standardization and maintenance documentation initiatives.

Coordination and Communication

• Communicate regularly with Maintenance, Production, Operations, Purchasing, and other departments.

• Participate in maintenance planning and scheduling meetings.
• Communicate constraints such as unavailable parts, production requirements, special tools, contractor requirements, or equipment downtime.
• Work with technicians to ensure job plans accurately reflect field conditions.

Qualifications

Required

• Strong organizational and communication skills.

• High school diploma or equivalent.

• Strong mechanical, electrical, industrial maintenance, or manufacturing equipment knowledge.
• Ability to understand maintenance terminology, equipment components, and repair processes.
• Ability to read equipment manuals, parts diagrams, schematics, and technical documentation.
• Strong computer and documentation skills.
• Ability to manage multiple maintenance priorities and work requests.

Preferred

• Previous industrial maintenance technician, maintenance planner, maintenance supervisor, or similar manufacturing experience.
• Experience using MaintainX or another CMMS.
• Experience developing preventive maintenance procedures and job plans.
• Experience with maintenance parts and inventory management.
• Familiarity with Microsoft Excel, Outlook, Teams, and other Microsoft 365 applications.
• Experience working in a manufacturing or industrial environment.

Key Skills and Competencies

The successful Maintenance Planner should demonstrate:

• Work-order planning

• Organization and attention to detail

• Communication across maintenance and production

• Planning and prioritization

• Ability to work independently

• Continuous-improvement mindset
• Mechanical and technical aptitude

• Maintenance troubleshooting knowledge
• Preventive maintenance development

• Parts identification
• Technical documentation
• CMMS proficiency