Senior Planner/Scheduler - Life Sciences Mega Project

Job Title: Senior Planner/Scheduler – Life Sciences Mega Project

Company: AcceleratedPM

Job Type: Full-time

Job Location: Kankakee, IL

Work Schedule: Full-time on-site

AcceleratedPM is seeking a Senior Planner/Scheduler to support a major biopharmaceutical manufacturing expansion in the Kankakee, Illinois area. This is a senior, field-facing, planning and scheduling role for a professional who understands construction execution, can facilitate interactive planning sessions, conduct field walks to validate progress, and convert real project conditions into credible, logic-driven schedules. The successful candidate must be able to integrate contractor inputs, support earned value reporting, identify critical and near-critical path drivers, and translate construction, procurement, commissioning, and operational readiness requirements into executable schedules. This role is best suited for someone with strong construction knowledge, major CAPEX experience in process-heavy industries, and the ability to support a construction management team in meeting rigorous client project controls standards.

Location/Travel:

• Full-time on-site presence required.
• Primary project location is in the Kankakee, IL/Bourbonnais Township area.
• Work environment includes construction management offices, professional office settings, and active construction areas where PPE and site safety requirements apply.

Role Focus:

• Serve as a field-facing planner/scheduler with strong construction knowledge and practical understanding of how work is planned, sequenced, installed, inspected, turned over, and commissioned.
• Develop, maintain, and analyze integrated project schedules for a major biopharmaceutical manufacturing expansion.
• Facilitate interactive planning sessions with contractors, construction managers, discipline leads, commissioning/validation stakeholders, and project controls personnel.
• Conduct field walks to validate progress, identify constraints, confirm workface readiness, and test whether schedule updates reflect actual field conditions.
• Support schedule governance, progress measurement, earned value requirements, baseline discipline, and client reporting standards.
• Provide schedule analysis that helps leadership understand critical path movement, milestone risk, contractor performance, interface issues, forecast impacts, and recovery options.

Key Responsibilities:

• Develop, maintain, status, and analyze project schedules using Oracle Primavera Cloud or similar Primavera-based platforms.
• Build logic-driven schedules that reflect construction sequencing, procurement dependencies, contractor interfaces, access constraints, inspection requirements, commissioning handoffs, and turnover milestones.
• Facilitate interactive planning sessions, look-ahead planning meetings, pull-planning discussions, and schedule development workshops with contractors and project stakeholders.
• Conduct field walks with construction managers, superintendents, discipline leads, and contractors to validate progress, identify constraints, confirm sequencing, and assess workface readiness.
• Review contractor schedule updates and reported progress against actual field conditions, including installed quantities, physical percent complete, inspection status, system turnover, and milestone readiness.
• Coordinate schedule inputs from contractors, construction managers, engineering, procurement, quality, commissioning, validation, and project controls stakeholders.
• Review contractor schedules and updates for completeness, sequencing, logic quality, constraints, float, calendars, coding, progress status, and alignment with project requirements.
• Support baseline development, reforecasting, schedule change control, schedule reporting, and earned value requirements.
• Coordinate with cost controls and project controls leadership to support cost/schedule integration, forecast updates, variance narratives, and performance reporting.
• Produce schedule reports, look-ahead schedules, milestone reports, critical path analysis, variance explanations, executive summaries, and schedule dashboards.
• Identify critical and near-critical path drivers, schedule slippage, missed handoffs, field constraints, access issues, trade stacking, procurement delays, and emerging milestone risks.
• Support recovery planning, resequencing, mitigation planning, and what-if analysis when milestones, handoffs, productivity, or field execution plans are at risk.
• Perform schedule quality reviews, including checks for logic, constraints, float, calendars, open ends, out-of-sequence progress, lags, leads, and critical path reasonableness.
• Support change control and time impact evaluation by identifying schedule impacts associated with scope changes, delays, productivity issues, procurement movement, contractor performance, and field constraints.

Qualifications & Requirements:

• 15+ years of planning/scheduling experience supporting large capital projects, preferably in process-heavy industrial environments.
• Strong construction knowledge with the ability to understand means and methods, field sequencing, contractor interfaces, workface readiness, inspections, turnover, and commissioning handoffs.
• Demonstrated experience supporting major CAPEX projects involving complex construction, engineering, procurement, contractor coordination, commissioning, turnover, or startup phases.
• Strong hands-on Primavera scheduling capability, preferably including Oracle Primavera Cloud.
• Experience conducting field walks to validate progress, assess work status, identify constraints, and confirm whether schedule updates reflect actual field conditions.
• Experience facilitating interactive planning sessions with contractors, field leaders, discipline leads, and project stakeholders.
• Experience reviewing contractor schedules and integrating multiple schedule inputs into a broader project schedule or master schedule environment.
• Working knowledge of earned value management, including progress measurement, baseline discipline, cost/schedule alignment, variance awareness, and reporting support.
• Strong understanding of schedule governance, including baselines, calendars, coding, WBS alignment, constraints, float, logic quality, progress rules, and change control.
• Ability to produce clear schedule narratives, variance explanations, milestone summaries, critical path analysis, and recovery recommendations.
• Ability to challenge weak schedule logic, unrealistic durations, unsupported progress, missing interfaces, inaccurate progress claims, and incomplete contractor updates professionally.
• Strong communication skills and ability to work directly with construction managers, superintendents, contractors, project controls staff, engineering, procurement, quality, commissioning, validation, and client stakeholders.
• Ability to work in a hybrid environment with regular on-site presence in the Kankakee, IL/ Bourbonnais Township area.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Excel and standard schedule reporting tools.

Preferred Skills:

• Pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical, biotech, life sciences, clean manufacturing, or validated facility project experience.
• Experience with cGMP-regulated project environments.
• Familiarity with commissioning, qualification, turnover, and operational readiness requirements.
• Experience planning or scheduling clean utilities, process systems, automation, HVAC, high-purity piping, controlled environments, or validated manufacturing systems.
• Experience with Oracle Primavera Cloud, Contruent, CMiC, Power BI, Acumen Fuse, Primavera Risk Analysis, Safran, or similar tools.
• Experience with schedule risk analysis, time impact analysis, delay analysis, recovery planning, or contractor claims support.
• Experience supporting multi-contractor, multi-phase capital programs with complex reporting and governance requirement.s

Salary: $185k per year depending on experience (1099 contract available also)

Benefits: Comprehensive benefits package, including 401(k), health and dental insurance, and PTO for W 2 employees.