Maintenance Planner

Job Summary:

The Maintenance Planner improves equipment reliability and minimizes maintenance-related costs through effective planning, scheduling, and coordination of labor, parts, materials, and outside vendor services. This role independently plans and schedules maintenance activities, coordinates priorities across maintenance, production, engineering, and other plant departments, maintains records needed to evaluate planning effectiveness, and recommends improvements based on performance data.

This position is on-site Monday through Friday with the ability to resolve issues after hours and/or on weekends as needed.

Essential Functions

Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform these essential functions.

• Coordinates maintenance planning and scheduling between maintenance, production, engineering, and other plant departments to support prompt, efficient, and quality maintenance service.
• Owns the maintenance work request process by receiving planned work orders, reviewing requests for completeness and business need, and resolving questions related to scope, priority, cost, or value with the appropriate requester or department leader.
• Identifies work orders requiring engineering review and coordinates design-related questions with Engineering as needed.
• Reviews planned work to determine the most effective way to complete the job, consulting with the Plant Manager, Maintenance Supervisor, requesters, or department leaders as needed.
• Identifies required materials, instructions, manuals, tools, cost estimates, and least-cost alternatives needed to execute planned work effectively.
• Uses knowledge of department activities and preventive maintenance needs to schedule planned work effectively.
• Maintains accurate work order data in the CMMS/ERP system, including job plans, labor estimates, parts requirements, equipment history, and completion notes.
• For contracted work, ensures the scope, cost, approved purchase orders, equipment availability, and contractor safety training requirements are addressed before work begins.
• Supports planning for scheduled downtime, shutdowns, and project-related maintenance activities to minimize disruption to plant operations.
• Analyzes maintenance performance metrics, including estimate accuracy, work orders awaiting scheduling, schedule compliance, overdue work orders, returned work orders, planned versus unplanned downtime, and maintenance-related savings; recommends corrective actions or process improvements based on findings.
• Acts as a gatekeeper for change management. Escalates requests for changes to equipment, process, and facility design to Engineering for documentation, review, and approval.
• Establishes and maintains the parts inventory and ordering process, including accurate on-hand quantities, storage locations, critical spare-parts lists by asset, replenishment practices, barcode improvements, supplier relationships, and a high sense of urgency when parts are needed to support or restore critical assets.
• Creates and maintains the preventive maintenance database, automated reminders, PM checklists, and routine maintenance requirements needed to support equipment uptime, verify critical PM coverage, and clarify routine operator maintenance activities.
• Evaluates predictive maintenance technologies and practices, such as temperature-sensing indicators on bearing housings, to identify developing equipment issues before failure.
• Identifies safety, sanitation, lockout/tagout, confined space, hot work, or other permit requirements associated with planned maintenance activities.
• Supports third-party and consumer audits as needed.

Supervisory responsibilities

• None

Knowledge, skills, and abilities

• Working knowledge of preventive maintenance planning, work order flow, maintenance scheduling, and equipment reliability practices.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Excellent planning, organizational, and time management skills.
• Ability to prioritize maintenance needs based on safety, equipment criticality, downtime risk, cost, and business impact.
• Ability to manage multiple tasks and multiple priorities simultaneously.
• Ability to work cross-functionally with maintenance, production, engineering, vendors, supervisors, and other plant departments.
• Demonstrates a strong sense of urgency when equipment downtime, critical parts, or production impact is involved.
• Ability to understand budgets, cost estimating, and value to the business.

Proficient in Microsoft Office Suite and SAP or other ERP/CMMS systems.


Required education and experience

• Equivalent combination of education and related maintenance, maintenance planning, or industrial operations experience required.
• Bachelor's degree in engineering, industrial technology, maintenance management, or a related field preferred.
• Working knowledge of industrial equipment, plant operations, preventive maintenance, and maintenance work order processes preferred.
• 3+ years of direct maintenance, maintenance planning, reliability, or industrial operations experience required, including experience working with CMMS systems and managing inventory.

Work environment and physical demands

• Prolonged periods of sitting at a desk and working on a computer, including keyboarding.
• Must be able to occasionally lift up to 50 pounds.
• Must be able to stand and walk throughout the facility and occasionally bend, reach, crouch, kneel, or stoop.
• Ability to work in a manufacturing environment with noise, dust, varying temperatures, and moving equipment.
• This position requires approximately 40% of work time on the plant floor and 60% at a desk or computer.
• Time on the plant floor may include maintaining the parts stockroom, verifying completion of PM activities, reviewing equipment or work areas, and reinforcing preventive maintenance expectations with maintenance staff.

Travel required

• The home office for this role is indicated at the top of this job description. Travel to other Ingredients Plus locations may be required as business needs arise.

Affirmative Action/EEO statement

We are an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, national origin, disability, veteran status, or any other category protected under federal, state, or local law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, merit, and business need.

Other duties

Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties, or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time with or without notice.