Sr Principal Program Planner, Manufacturing Transition (Hybrid)

BAE Systems has an exciting opportunity for an experienced Program Planner to support factory transition projects. As the Planner, this role is responsible for developing and managing the Integrated Master Schedule for complex factory transitions and business continuity initiatives. The Planner will partner closely with cross-functional transition teams and functional leaders to ensure all transition activities are logically sequenced, properly resourced, and executed to meet project milestones. This role will also help establish a best-in-class planning and scheduling process that can be standardized and leveraged across future transition projects.

The Planner will drive the integrated planning and scheduling process for operations transition projects by developing, maintaining, and managing comprehensive Integrated Master Schedules (IMS) that align manufacturing, engineering, program management, production control, supply chain, quality, facilities, and capital activities. The Planner will establish schedule standards, integrate cross-functional activities, identifiy critical path dependencies, and will provide visibility to project milestones, resource requirements, risks, and execution performance.

This role will be performed in a hybrid remote work format, with the individual splitting their time between our site in Austin, TX, and remotely from an alternate work location. To be considered for this opportunity, applicants must either currently reside within the greater Austin, TX metro area, or be willing to relocate to the area.

Primary Responsibilities

• Develop, maintain, and manage comprehensive Integrated Master Schedules (IMS) for complex factory transition projects, incorporating manufacturing, supply chain, engineering, quality, facilities, capital equipment, production, and product transfer activities.

• Establish schedule structure, milestones, dependencies, durations, and sequencing to provide a clear and executable roadmap for successful project transition.

• Partner with the Transition Project Manager and functional leads to translate project scope, deliverables, and objectives into detailed, integrated schedules.

• Establish and maintain schedule baselines, critical path analysis, key milestones, schedule performance metrics, and schedule health assessments.

• Identify schedule risks, constraints, bottlenecks, and cross-functional dependencies and develop mitigation strategies to protect critical milestones.

• Coordinate with Engineering, Operations, Supply Chain, Quality, Program Management, Facilities, Finance, and other functional organizations to ensure schedule inputs are accurate, timely, and aligned to overall transition objectives.

• Conduct regular schedule reviews with functional leaders to validate progress, identify variances, update forecasts, and ensure accountability for committed activities and milestones.

• Monitor actual performance against the IMS and proactively identify schedule slippage, emerging risks, and potential impacts to production execution, customer commitments, and business continuity.

• Integrate resource requirements, capacity constraints, equipment availability, facility readiness, material availability, and other execution dependencies into the overall transition schedule.

• Maintain schedule integrity through disciplined change control, ensuring scope changes, approved assumptions, risks, and dependencies are appropriately reflected in the IMS.

• Develop and maintain schedule dashboards, milestone trackers, look-ahead schedules, and executive-level schedule reporting to provide transparent visibility into project performance.

• Support development of transition estimates, sequencing strategies, resource plans, and execution scenarios to enable effective project planning and decision-making.

• Capture schedule lessons learned, planning assumptions, and best practices to continuously improve the transition planning process and establish a repeatable, best-in-class transition scheduling methodology.

• Collaborate with project controls and finance teams to ensure schedule milestones are aligned with project budgets, forecasts, and performance reporting.

• Bachelor’s Degree

• Strong knowledge of project planning, scheduling, manufacturing processes, and cross-functional operations

• Demonstrated experience developing and managing Integrated Master Schedules for complex projects, programs, or manufacturing initiatives

• Strong understanding of schedule logic, dependencies, critical path, milestones, resource constraints, schedule risk, and schedule performance

• Ability to work collaboratively across Engineering, Operations, Supply Chain, Quality, Program Management, Facilities, and other functional organizations

• Strong communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to influence stakeholders and drive accountability without direct authority

• Ability to present complex schedule information and recommendations to senior leaders in a clear, concise, and actionable manner

• Ability to manage multiple priorities in a dynamic environment and operate independently with limited supervision

• Strong proficiency in Microsoft Project, Primavera P6, or comparable project scheduling software

• Bachelor’s degree in a technical discipline and a minimum of 10 years’ experience in project planning

• Experience developing and managing Integrated Master Schedules for large-scale manufacturing, factory transition, facility relocation, product transfer, or capital investment projects.

• Proficient with Microsoft Project or other enterprise-level scheduling and project controls systems.

• PMP, PMI-SP, or other project planning/scheduling certification preferred.

• Experience with Earned Value Management (EVM), schedule performance measurement, or project controls preferred.