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Maintenance Planner

Company
AAK
Location
Newark, NJ
Work type
Full Time
Posted
2026-09-14

Job description

About the role

The Maintenance Planner is responsible for the planning, scheduling, and Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) administration that drives the site's maintenance program. This role plans and schedules preventive, corrective, emergency, and predictive work orders, maintains the integrity of maintenance data in the CMMS, and partners closely with the Plant Engineer, Maintenance Manager, and MRO Specialist to ensure work is planned with the right parts, labor, and information so it can be executed safely, efficiently, and on schedule.

Responsibilities

Develop, publish, and maintain the site's daily and weekly maintenance schedules in the CMMS, balancing preventive, corrective, emergency, and predictive work against available labor, parts, and asset availability.
Review and triage all incoming work requests (PM, CM, EM, PdM), assigning priority, craft, and target completion timeframe in the CMMS.
Plan corrective and preventive work orders in the CMMS, identifying required parts, labor hours, tools, permits, and job procedures before releasing work to the maintenance team.
Build, standardize, and continuously refine the PM task library and PM schedules to maximize equipment reliability and compliance.
Generate and release PM work orders on schedule and monitor PM compliance against site targets.
Partner with the Reliability team to translate predictive maintenance (PdM) findings (vibration, thermography, oil analysis) into scoped, planned corrective work orders.
Own and continuously groom the maintenance backlog, ensuring aging work orders are prioritized, resourced, and scheduled appropriately.
Serve as the primary administrator of the CMMS for the maintenance department, including workflow configuration, asset hierarchy and equipment master data integrity, and data entry standards.
Ensure accurate work order closeout, failure coding, and documentation in the CMMS for all completed preventive, corrective, emergency, and predictive work.
Coordinate with the MRO Specialist to confirm parts availability and lead times ahead of scheduled work, and flag reorder point or min/max needs for critical spares.
Develop and distribute maintenance KPI and metrics reporting (PM compliance, backlog aging, MTTR/MTBF, wrench time) to maintenance leadership.
Partner with the Plant Engineer and Maintenance Manager to align weekly schedules with production priorities, outages, and turnaround plans.
Maintain job plans, standard work instructions, and equipment documentation to support consistent, repeatable work execution.
Support root cause analysis and reliability improvement initiatives by supplying historical work order, failure, and cost data.

About you

Associate's or Bachelor's degree in Mechanical, Electrical, Industrial Engineering, Maintenance Management, or a related technical field preferred; equivalent experience considered.
3+ years of experience in an industrial or manufacturing maintenance environment, with prior maintenance planning and scheduling experience strongly preferred.
Proficient with CMMS platforms for work order planning, scheduling, and reporting; eMaint x5 experience strongly preferred.
Solid understanding of preventive, predictive, and corrective maintenance strategies and reliability-centered maintenance principles.
Working knowledge of mechanical, electrical, and rotating equipment systems, including pumps, gearboxes, motors, conveyors, and valves.
Strong organizational and time-management skills with the ability to manage a multi-craft schedule and shifting priorities.
Effective communicator able to work cross-functionally with technicians, supervisors, operations, and the reliability team.
Proficient with Microsoft Office (Excel, Outlook) and comfortable interpreting technical drawings, manuals, and equipment documentation.
Certified Maintenance & Reliability Professional (CMRP) or similar certification a plus.

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