Lead Maintenance Planner

Job Purpose

To lead the maintenance planning function by developing, coordinating, and optimizing preventative and corrective maintenance plans across the zinc mine's surface operations. The Lead Maintenance Planner ensures maintenance tasks are planned, resourced, scheduled, and executed safely and efficiently to maximize asset reliability, reduce downtime, and support production targets.

Key Responsibilities

• Maintenance Planning Leadership
• Lead a team of maintenance planners and scheduling personnel.
• Oversee daily, weekly, and long-term maintenance planning activities.
• Ensure accurate scoping of work, job plans, work packs, and resource requirements.
• Maintain alignment with production priorities and engineering strategies.
• Responsibilities include the calculation of required materials, bought out components and tools, supplying realistic production capacity data and establishing assembly schedules to ensure that manufacturing programmes are met.
• People management and liaison with manufacturing/sales production.
• Takes responsibility for a process plant regarding planning and scheduling.

Preventative & Predictive Maintenance Programs

• Develop and optimize preventative maintenance schedules for:
• Crushing & milling circuits
• Flotation plants
• Pumps, conveyors, thickeners
• Compressors, boilers, water systems
• Substations, MCCs, motors, instrumentation
• Ensure predictive tools (vibration analysis, oil sampling, thermography) are integrated into planning.

Shutdown & Major Maintenance Planning

• Lead planning for major shutdowns and planned plant outages.
• Coordinate with operations, engineering, procurement, and contractors.
• Develop detailed shutdown plans including:
• Job cards
• Task sequences
• Gantt charts
• Resource loading
• Risk assessments
• Ensure shutdown execution meets scope, cost, and timeline.

Work Management System (WMS) Oversight

Manage CMMS systems such as SAP PM / Pragma / Ellipse / OnKey.

Ensure work orders are:

• Created
• Prioritized
• Planned
• Costed
• Closed out with proper feedback
• Champion master data accuracy (BOMs, asset registers, task lists).

Coordination & Communication

Act as the key link between:

• Maintenance Foremen
• Artisans & technicians
• Operations supervisors
• Engineering specialists
• Supply chain/procurement
• External contractors
• Run weekly maintenance planning and scheduling meetings.

Material & Resource Planning

• Ensure correct spares, tools, and materials are available for maintenance tasks.
• Work with procurement to reduce stockouts and maintain critical spares.
• Support supplier assessments and long-lead item planning.

Safety & Compliance

• Ensure maintenance plans include:
• Risk assessments
• Safe work procedures
• Lock-out/Tag-out requirements
• Legal inspections
• Drive compliance with MHSA and internal engineering standards.

Reporting & Continuous Improvement

• Produce weekly and monthly maintenance KPI reports (backlog, schedule compliance, MTTR, MTBF).
• Identify recurring breakdowns and escalate to engineering or reliability teams.
• Lead continuous improvement initiatives to improve planning and asset reliability.

Required Skills & Competencies

Technical Skills

• Strong knowledge of mechanical, electrical, and instrumentation systems used in mineral processing.
• Expert-level understanding of maintenance planning principles.
• CMMS proficiency (SAP PM, Pragma, OnKey, Ellipse, etc.).
• Ability to read engineering drawings, P&IDs, and OEM manuals.
• Understanding of maintenance cost control and budgeting.

Behavioural Competencies

• Strong leadership and mentoring ability.
• High attention to detail and organizational skills.
• Excellent communication across engineering and operations teams.
• Analytical thinking and problem-solving ability.
• High safety awareness and adherence to engineering standards.

Qualifications & Experience

• Minimum Requirements
• Technical qualification in Mechanical, Electrical, or Instrumentation Engineering OR Trade Test (Artisan) with relevant planning experience.
• 5+ years' experience in maintenance planning in mining or heavy industry.
• 2+ years in a senior or lead planning role.
• Experience with CMMS system use and data management.

Preferred

• Diploma or Degree in Engineering or Maintenance Management.
• Experience in zinc, lead, copper, or similar base metals operations.
• Shutdown planning experience.
• Certificate in Maintenance Planning & Scheduling.
• Exposure to reliability engineering practices (RCM, RCA, FMEA).

Physical & Environmental Conditions

• Work split between engineering offices and plant areas.
• Exposure to dust, noise, vibration, and heat in processing environments.
• Must be physically able to climb structures during site scoping.
• Some after-hours and standby duties may be required.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

• Maintenance schedule compliance (>90%).
• Backlog management within targets.
• Reduction in unplanned equipment downtime.
• Shutdown execution performance (cost, scope, schedule).
• CMMS data accuracy and work order close-out quality.
• Continuous improvement implementation.