Some of my friends have been asking me about “what does a planner do?", "What are the responsibilities of a planner?”
Well a Planner's job descriptions and responsibilities are slightly different from industry to industry. However, the main activities include, but are not limited to, the following:-
- He needs to understand work scope, quantity and should be familiar with logical sequences in terms of engineering, manufacturing and construction disciplines.
- He needs to conduct field scoping to clarify scope as required.
- He must understand WBS structure, and has to work with management and project/maintenance team in the development of work break down structure for progress measurement, scheduling, cost estimating and project control.
- He has to prepare and manage overall master schedule integrating work breakdown structure using scheduling software. (Primavera, MS project, Asta power projects etc)
- He should understand contractual matter, earn value method, familiar with scope management and change control.
- He needs to coordinate schedule from multiple contractors/Sub contractors and incorporate the information gathered into the overall project master schedule.
- He has to prepare cost estimation and schedule bar chart plan considering all in puts (manpower, equipment’s and materials) availability, production and construction sequences.
- He has to provide work method statement or procedure as required.
- He should be able to utilize planning tools such as MS excel, MS Project, Primavera, Asta power projects & SAP
- He should develop and update resources (manpower and equipment) histogram weekly or monthly as required.
- He has to implement plan versus actual progress charts (histograms/S curves). Prepare reports and analyses deviations from plan.
- Track, monitor and forecast progress of all activities and deliverable such as products, engineering documents, fabrication status and construction of all discipline.
- Analyze gaps between the planned and actual progress and highlight the areas of concern which required action of the associate task member.
- Prepare and update three weeks and three months look-ahead schedule that reflect the priority activities.
- Liaises with all team leaders/members to communicate required completion dates and interface between functional team/operational team and project team.
- He should participate in all meetings (i.e. schedule review meeting, progress meeting, coordination meeting, constructability review meeting and so on).
