Who We Are: Challenge Manufacturing’s mission is to manufacture with operational excellence by empowering our employee-owners. As a leading tier 1 supplier of complex metal assemblies for the global automotive industry, we drive innovative solutions for future mobility. We believe the best ideas come from individual unique perspectives. These ideas combined with the teamwork of industry leaders allow us to accomplish any challenge. Our team members take pride in the work we do and embody our core values of safety, ownership, and teamwork every day; they are the true driving force in our operations.
Challenge is proud to be one of the largest employee-owned automotive companies in North America. One of the many benefits of joining the Challenge team is the ESOP program. This program allows Challenge to give shares of the Company to all employee-owners annually. These shares are an additional retirement benefit that will continue to grow during your time at Challenge. Being part of an ESOP means our employee-owners share in Challenge’s success!
Challenge is #QualityDriven and #PeoplePowered!
Who We Want
The Maintenance Planner / Scheduler is responsible for developing, coordinating, and continuously improving maintenance work planning and scheduling systems that support safe operations, regulatory compliance, equipment reliability, and plant performance. This position serves as a subject matter expert in the CMMS / ERP maintenance system (Plex preferred) and drives work execution through disciplined planning, weekly scheduling, backlog management, job package development, and maintenance process improvement.
This role requires a technically strong, organized, and collaborative professional who can work effectively across Maintenance, Operations, Engineering, Production, Contractors, and Stores / MRO functions to ensure maintenance work is planned efficiently and executed with high schedule compliance and minimal disruption to operations. The position is expected to support a world-class maintenance system by improving work order quality, communication, wrench time, backlog control, failure elimination, and asset performance.
What You'll Do
Core Planning & Scheduling Responsibilities
- Plan and schedule preventive, predictive, corrective, routine, shutdown, outage, and identified improvement work for production equipment, utility systems, and facility infrastructure to maintain safe operating conditions, regulatory compliance, and equipment availability.
- Ensure planning is completed before scheduling by verifying scope, labor requirements, craft needs, permits, lockout considerations, parts availability, tooling, access requirements, drawings, procedures, and estimated labor hours.
- Build complete job packages for planned work, including work order scope, sequence of work, safety requirements, permits, drawings / manuals, BOM or parts list, special tools, contractor requirements, labor estimates by craft, downtime requirements, and closeout expectations.
- Develop and maintain a weekly maintenance schedule with appropriate labor loading, skill alignment, equipment availability, and work-priority considerations.
- Schedule work to approximately 100% of available labor hours while preserving flexibility for urgent or reactive work through the deliberate use of interruptible tasks and priority-based scheduling logic.
- Coordinate planning and scheduling activities for internal crafts, contractors, and third-party maintenance service providers.
CMMS / ERP / Data Management
- Utilize and maintain CMMS / ERP system data to support high-quality maintenance planning, scheduling, tracking, reporting, and work history documentation.
- Review, prioritize, and convert work requests into effective work orders with clear scope, labor estimates, required parts, and schedule-readiness criteria.
- Maintain equipment and maintenance master data, including asset records, PM task lists, standard job plans, BOMs, labor estimates, and historical work order feedback.
- Compile and distribute reports related to planning, scheduling, backlog health, schedule compliance, completion rates, and maintenance effectiveness.
- Support data quality and process discipline for work order coding, closure comments, failure reporting, and maintenance history capture.
Cross-Functional Coordination
- Serve as one of the principal points of coordination between Maintenance, Operations, Engineering, Production, Contractors, and support functions to align maintenance work with plant priorities and operational needs.
- Establish and maintain effective communication with affected departments regarding downtime windows, schedule requirements, equipment readiness, job status, materials, and execution progress.
- Coordinate with Stores / MRO to ensure parts are identified, staged, reserved, and available before scheduled execution.
- Support project, shutdown, and outage planning where maintenance capacity, plant availability, or equipment constraints affect execution timing.
- Support best-practice sharing and standardized planning methods across production areas and, where applicable, across multiple plants or business units.
Maintenance Performance & Continuous Improvement
- Baseline and improve the current state of work order planning and scheduling effectiveness, including backlog quality, schedule compliance, job readiness, wrench time, and work order completion rates.
- Drive continuous improvement in maintenance systems, methods, and processes to improve safety, quality, delivery, cost, and reliability performance.
- Follow up on completed work orders to capture technician feedback, improve job plans, verify internal customer satisfaction, and support failure analysis and problem elimination.
- Support PM / PdM optimization, standard job plan development, recurring maintenance improvement, and repeatable planning standards.
- Identify process gaps and develop formal improvement actions that strengthen planning accuracy, execution discipline, and overall maintenance performance.
Role Boundaries / Operating Model
- Work closely with Maintenance Supervision to support weekly planning and scheduling; however, daily crew direction, same-day rescheduling, and immediate emergency response ownership remain with supervision.
- Support a maintenance operating system that clearly differentiates planning, scheduling, execution, and supervision to improve role clarity, accountability, and work execution discipline.
- Support the assigned plant and, when required, coordinate standard planning practices and reporting across additional facilities or business units.
Role Success Measures
This role should be evaluated not only by administrative completion of work orders, but by measurable improvement in the quality and effectiveness of maintenance planning and schedule execution. Performance focus areas include:
- Planned work percentage
- Weekly schedule compliance
- Emergency / break-in work percentage
- Backlog age, quality, and prioritization
- PM / PdM completion effectiveness
- Job readiness / first-time-ready work packages
- Wrench time improvement through better parts, tools, and information availability
- Maintenance history quality and repeat-job planning efficiency
- Shutdown / outage planning effectiveness
- Internal customer satisfaction with planned maintenance execution
When and Where
This is a 1st shift / 6AM-3PM, Monday–Friday position located at our Plant 4 Office in Holland, MI. Additional hours, off-shift support, weekend planning support, and outage / shutdown coordination may be required based on business needs.
What You Need to Have
Education / Experience
- Associate degree with three years of Journeyman experience or equivalent higher-level education in mechanical / electrical engineering and/or industrial mechanical, electrical, PLC, controls, or maintenance planning; or
- Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field with emphasis in logistics, planning, maintenance systems, or reliability preferred; or
- Equivalent combination of education and experience, including 10+ years of combined professional experience in industrial mechanical / electrical / PLC / controls maintenance planning.
- Previous automotive manufacturing experience preferred.
Technical / Functional Qualifications
- Strong technical knowledge of industrial maintenance systems, equipment, processes, regulations, standards, and codes.
- Ability to read and understand complex diagrams, drawings, layouts, schematics, and equipment documentation.
- Strong working knowledge of CMMS / ERP systems; Plex experience strongly preferred.
- Proficient with Microsoft Office applications, including Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and project / scheduling tools.
- Strong estimating, prioritization, and organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple competing demands in a schedule- and cost-driven environment.
- Good multi-craft maintenance background with the ability to develop practical, executable job plans.
Behavioral / Leadership Qualifications
- Strong verbal and written communication skills.
- Team-oriented with effective interpersonal skills and the ability to work well with people at all levels of the organization.
- Self-motivated, reliable, thorough, accurate, and accountable for results.
- Able to manage changing priorities and requirements professionally and objectively.
- Committed to continuous improvement, learning, and the development of better methods and systems.
- Demonstrates integrity, urgency, constructive conflict resolution, and a collaborative approach to supporting plant performance.
Working Conditions / Additional Expectations
- Regular interaction with production, maintenance, engineering, contractors, and support functions in an industrial manufacturing environment.
- Frequent use of computer systems, reports, technical documents, and maintenance records.
- Plant floor presence is expected to validate scope, improve job plans, confirm readiness, and support continuous improvement.
- May require occasional off-shift, weekend, or shutdown support based on plant requirements.