Planning Engineer | Job Descriptions | Better Explained

The planning Engineer is considered the right-hand of a Project Manager as he floats the information about project times and allocates the budget from time to time. The Project Manager uses that information to decide to execute the project smoothly.

The planning Engineer role for Construction Projects varies with Stakeholders who are working for them. Like he can be working for PMC- Project Management Consultant, EPC-Engineering, Procurement Construction, Main Contractor, or Sub-Contractor.

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Other categories like turnaround planning engineer, Shut-down planner, Material Planner, and operational plants.

Read More: Interview Questions for Planning Engineer

Qualification Required for a Planning Engineer

An Engineering degree is a must with a certification like PMP – Project Management Professional, PSP-Project Management Professional, PMI-SP, or Masters in Project Management will be an extra advantage.

However, a Scheduler needs not necessarily have an Engineering degree as his role is only to take over the plan once approved to track or elaborate it later on.

Roles & Responsibilities | Job Description

Again, it all depends on which firm you are working like PMT/PMC, EPC, or a Contractor, and responsibilities will differ in a different entity.

Planning Engineer Job Description also differs from project to project as for the big project, he may be handling one project and is available on site in another case he is dealing with all from Head Office. But here, we will only discuss if all types of planners are available on the project site. Some of the common planning engineer job descriptions but not limited to are mentioned below;

A planning engineer is expected to know about these tasks.

• Good Understanding for SOP: The work scope is all mentioned in contract documents; he should prepare his plan to avoid Scope Creep in the project.
• Understand & Knows Drawings: He should be well versed in drawing, reading at least to evaluate the quantities, although this is a job of a QS- Quantity Surveyor, but on a smaller project, you may have fewer resources in the case.
• Scheduling Software: He should be well versed in Scheduling software used on the project like Primavera P6 and Microsoft Project, Asta, or Tilos. He should know advanced Microsoft Excel for data visualization if required & Microsoft PowerPoint for presentations. But a Planning Engineer should not only be a software jockey – Sadly, most nowadays!
• Daily, Weekly & Monthly Reports: Planning Engineer should be able to do continuous tracking of the project & can prepare required reports as per contract.
• Minutes of Meetings-MOM: He needs to review and prepare MOM and float the concerned stakeholder later on. He should be able to handle the Contractor & can challenge the Project Management Team at the same time if anything seems out of track.
• Risk Register Maintenance: He is solely responsible for getting updates & keep the Risk Register. Also, he should continuously update the PM with any corrective action.
• Event Recording: He should maintain the event records to prepare Extension of Time – EOT later on.
• Letter Writings: He needs to continuously look for any event & float the letters to the Client or the Contractor who is applicable but always consent to his project manager.
• Change Order Request: He is the one if he finds any feasible change in scope, needs to evaluate the resources, time, etc. & raises it to the concern.
• Project Analysis: He should be good enough to prepare presentable related S Curves like for Earned Value Analysis, can analyze SPI-Schedule Performance Index, CPI-Cost performance Indicators, Cost Variance, Schedule Variance, Progress Measurement System, and so on as per requirements.
• Invoice Preparation / Review: As per his job role, he needs to prepare the Invoice or review it according to contractual project requirements.
• Lesson Learned Report: He is responsible for preparing & maintain lessons learned throughout the whole project.

Job Vacancy Requirement | Sample

HR needs to mention these requirements when looking to find a potential candidate for a planning engineer job. From a planner’s point of view, you need to mention these keywords in your job descriptions to float your resume/cv.

1. Must be a Graduate Engineer – preferably Mechanical or Civil and conversant in English
2. More than Five to Eight (5 to 8) years of relevant experience in Oil & Gas, Power, Petrochemical Industry in greenfield and brownfields.
3. Fully conversant with planning software Primavera P6 and MS Project must be a superuser
4. Fully conversant with MS Office package specifically in MS Excels
5. Able to prepare and update quality schedules Level 3-4 with resources in P6 and MS Project
6. Able to prepare weekly look ahead and recovery schedule as required
7. Able to prepare workforce histogram with crafts required for the full span of work
8. Able to prepare progress measurement and reporting templates and implement the same for the reporting
9. Ability to extract “S” Curve planned and updated from schedules as required
10. Ability to work efficiently on multiple work packs.

These are some general requirements, and you can add your budget or other requirements as well. This will help to save tonnes of time for both parties ultimately.

Wrap Up

The planning Engineer is one of the key players of the project team. The duties of planning engineers are to keep updated the project stakeholder regarding the project scenarios. Planning Engineer does not mean being an expert in planning and scheduling software instead of planning a project to view the project constraints.

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Further Reads

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• Work Breakdown Structure

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