Maintenance Planner - Cast Iron

Location: Onsite - Kohler, WI

BASIC FUNCTION

The Maintenance Planner - Cast Iron Maintenance serves as the site's reliability and asset management leader for assigned manufacturing assets, responsible for improving equipment reliability, maintenance effectiveness, work execution, and production uptime through the strategic planning, coordination, and scheduling of non-reactive maintenance activities. Operating with a high degree of autonomy, this position develops detailed job plans, manages preventive and predictive maintenance strategies, supports major outage planning and execution, and optimizes the use of maintenance labor, contractors, materials, and financial resources. The role independently influences maintenance spending, contractor utilization, equipment reliability initiatives, and long-term asset performance, with a scope, complexity, and organizational impact comparable to advanced maintenance planning positions.

Success in this role requires strong organizational skills, attention to detail, hands-on maintenance experience, and the ability to communicate effectively and collaborate across all levels of the organization. Significant time is spent in the field gathering information, validating job requirements, and seeking feedback from frontline leadership and skilled trades associates to develop safe, efficient, and executable work plans. Through technical leadership, data-driven decision making, and a passion for continuous improvement, the Maintenance Planner leads cross-functional efforts to reduce downtime, improve asset performance, enhance maintenance productivity, and drive sustainable reliability improvements while fostering a positive and collaborative work environment.

SPECIFIC RESPONSIBILITIES

Work Flow Function

• Evaluate incoming work requests for required information and segregate the work appropriately as a key element in the planning / scheduling process.
• Determine job commencement date by priority, relative to the schedule, through consultation with production, maintenance supervision and material lead-time requirements.
• Evaluate existing and incoming work volumes and communicate with requester to establish priority and use partner contractors when necessary to meet established priority.
• Prepare a detailed weekly schedule that identifies daily activities, including allowance for emergency work and preapproved vacations.
• Revise the weekly schedule for major changes in project scope affecting resources and communicate these changes to all effected parties.

Planning Function

• Develop and document scope of work and limiting conditions through worksite evaluation and consultation with the requester, engineering, equipment suppliers and team leaders.
• Identify special tools, equipment and required trades.Arrange availability in accordance with the equipment availability through coordination with other planner groups and previously scheduled work.
• Identify required safety procedures and documents.Arrange availability of documents within the work plan and coordinate as needed.
• Determine required materials, engineered documentation, spare parts, and contractor resources necessary to execute planned work. Collaborate with Purchasing and Materials Management to optimize inventory levels, improve parts availability, and reduce maintenance delays.
• Review job plans as necessary with the maintenance team prior to commencement date.
• Establish sequence and duration of all craft skills, including sub‑order requirements, and external support requirements.
• Document, archive and maintain repeatable job plans and bill of materials.
• Manage equipment documentation program including archiving, updates and removal of documentation for eliminated equipment.
• Analyze maintenance workload, equipment criticality, historical performance data, and labor availability to develop resource forecasts and maintenance schedules that maximize equipment availability and maintenance effectiveness.
• Evaluate maintenance history, equipment failure trends, and operational requirements to support work prioritization decisions and identify opportunities to improve reliability, reduce downtime, and optimize maintenance effectiveness.
• Partner with Engineering, Operations, and Maintenance leadership to support reliability improvement initiatives, equipment life-cycle strategies, and corrective actions for recurring equipment failures.
• Coordinate meetings with engineering, supervisors, contractors and maintenance staff as required to ensure success through documentation of tasks to drive success.
• Develop maintenance labor, material, and contractor cost estimates for planned work, outages, and major repair activities. Provide recommendations regarding maintenance spending priorities, contractor utilization, and resource allocation to support budget objectives and operational requirements.

General Functions

• Lead the administration and continuous improvement of preventive and predictive maintenance programs through workload balancing, equipment criticality analysis, regulatory compliance requirements, and reliability-based maintenance optimization strategies.

• Serve as a key liaison between Operations, Engineering, Maintenance, Purchasing, and contractors to align maintenance priorities with production objectives and business needs.

• Support planning and coordination activities for major maintenance outages, equipment rebuilds, and facility improvement projects, including labor forecasting, material readiness, and contractor coordination.

• Utilize SAP PM and other maintenance systems to manage asset information, maintenance planning data, performance reporting, and continuous improvement efforts.

• Provide technical planning expertise and guidance to maintenance leadership, engineers, skilled trades associates, and project teams regarding maintenance planning best practices and equipment reliability strategies.

• Ability to read, analyze and interpret technical drawings.

• Monitor and analyze key maintenance performance indicators, including schedule compliance, PM completion, backlog health, labor utilization, equipment availability, and downtime trends. Develop recommendations and corrective actions to improve maintenance performance and asset reliability.

• Influences maintenance expenditures through labor planning, contractor utilization decisions, material forecasting, outage planning, and maintenance prioritization activities while supporting achievement of departmental budget objectives.

• Identify repeatable tasks for documentation as a standard operating procedure.

• Maintain a clean organized kitting and repairable area for materials and complete regular audits and communicate kitted material location on job plans.

• Support continuous improvement initiatives focused on reducing downtime, improving asset performance, optimizing maintenance costs, increasing workforce productivity, and enhancing operational sustainability.

• Self-development that aligns with the business unit goals through ongoing education and / or work place training.

• Provide requested information or submit special reports as required by supervision.

• Complete other assignments that are consistent with the basic function or as requested by supervision.Work Flow Function

• Determine job commencement date by priority, relative to the schedule, through consultation with production, maintenance supervision and material lead-time requirements.

• Evaluate existing and incoming work volumes and communicate with requester to establish priority and use partner contractors when necessary to meet established priority.

• Prepare a detailed weekly schedule that identifies daily activities, including allowance for emergency work and preapproved vacations.

• Revise the weekly schedule for major changes in project scope affecting resources and communicate these changes to all effected parties.