Planning Engineer- Abu Dhabi

Planning Engineer

Industry: Pre-insulated & Coated Piping Systems Manufacturing
Location: Abu Dhabi
Reports to: Operations / Planning Manager

About the Role

Our client, an established international Engineering systems, is looking for a Planning Engineer to drive production and project planning across its manufacturing operations. The role sits between Projects, Engineering, Production, Procurement, QA/QC and Logistics, making sure orders are produced on schedule, materials are where they need to be, and committed delivery dates are met.

Key Responsibilities

Production and Project Planning

• Review customer orders, project purchase releases, technical requirements, bills of materials (BOM), drawings and delivery milestones, and clarify planning inputs with Projects and Engineering.
• Prepare, maintain and communicate master production schedules, along with rolling monthly, weekly and daily plans for pipe insulation, coating, fabrication, welding, fittings and related operations.
• Create and release ERP work orders, routing sequences, planned quantities, material requests and job priorities, and update work-order progress and completed quantities.
• Assess plant, equipment, labour, shift, welding and coating-line capacity, identify bottlenecks, and recommend realistic sequencing, overtime or subcontracting.
• Run status meetings and coordinate with Production, QA/QC and Logistics so that manufacturing completion lines up with inspection, dispatch and site delivery dates.

Material and Resource Coordination

• Prepare material requirements and purchase requisitions for steel pipes and fittings, insulation chemicals, jackets/casings, coating consumables, field-joint kits, leak-detection cables and project-specific items.
• Work with Procurement and Stores on stock availability, PO status, incoming shipments, shortages and allocation of material to work orders.
• Check planned against actual raw-material usage in ERP (steel and chemicals) and flag abnormal consumption, wastage and inventory discrepancies.

Manufacturing Execution Control

• Plan manufacturing stages, including surface preparation, blasting, coating application and curing, pipe and fitting prefabrication, welding and dimensional checks, and insulation and jacketing.
• Make sure plans account for approved drawings, ITPs, hold points, testing, rework and release requirements, without bypassing QA/QC approvals.
• Sequence special engineered components (bends, spools, field-joint materials) and customer-specific packaging or preservation needs.
• Prepare monthly production plans and performance targets based on raw-material availability, and review welding capacity and manufacturing estimates for major consumables.

Monitoring, Reporting and Improvement

• Report plan-versus-actual output, schedule variance, backlog, WIP and forecast completion dates.
• Produce weekly and monthly performance indices and dashboards covering schedule adherence, capacity utilisation, on-time completion and material shortages.
• Analyse delays and constraints, start recovery plans, and escalate risks to customer delivery.
• Contribute to continuous-improvement efforts aimed at cutting waiting time, rework, excess inventory and cycle time.
• Keep planning records accurate and comply with ISO management systems, HSE requirements and document control.

Key Accountabilities

• Production schedule adherence and on-time work-order completion
• On-time readiness for committed project dispatch milestones
• Accuracy and timeliness of ERP, production and planning reports
• Material availability and prompt escalation of shortages
• Effective capacity utilisation, controlled WIP and fewer avoidable delays
• Compliance with quality, HSE and planning procedures

Requirements

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical, Industrial or Production Engineering (Mechanical preferred)
• Experience: 3 to 5 years, ideally as a Planning Engineer in a manufacturing environment
• Languages: Fluent English; the regional language of the work location is an advantage
• Technical: Able to read engineering drawings
• Software: MS Office (Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Outlook, Project), AutoCAD, project management tools
• Advantageous: Training in production planning, ERP/MRP, Lean manufacturing, project controls, or Primavera/MS Project
• Driving licence: Required