Senior Lead Planner in Casa Grande, Arizona at Ivanhoe Electric

Senior Lead Planner - Program

Report to: Program Controls Manager

Department: Program

Location: Santa Cruz Copper Project in Casa Grande, AZ

About Ivanhoe Electric Inc.

We are a United States-domiciled minerals exploration company with a focus on developing mines from mineral deposits principally located in the United States. We seek to support American supply chain independence by finding and delivering copper and other critical metals vital to advanced manufacturing, infrastructure development, technology, and national security. We use our powerful Typhoon™ geophysical surveying system, together with advanced data analytics provided by our 94.3%-owned subsidiary, Computational Geosciences Inc. (“CGI”), to accelerate and de-risk the mineral exploration process as we seek to discover new deposits of critical metals that may otherwise be undetectable with traditional exploration technologies. We believe the United States is significantly underexplored and has the potential to yield major new discoveries of critical metals. Our mineral exploration efforts focus on copper and other metals, including nickel, cobalt, platinum group elements, gold, and silver. By advancing our portfolio of critical metals exploration projects, headlined by the Santa Cruz Copper Project in Arizona, we intend to contribute to domestic supply by developing resources that support industrial and strategic sectors. We also operate a 50/50 joint venture with Saudi Arabian Mining Company ("Maaden") to explore for minerals on ~48,500 km2 of underexplored Arabian Shield in Saudi Arabia. Finally, in 2024, we established an exploration alliance with BHP Mineral Resources Inc. (“BHP”), a subsidiary of BHP Group Limited, to search for critical minerals in the United States.

Job Summary:

Ivanhoe Electric is advancing the Santa Cruz Copper Project into the execution phase through an Integrated Project Execution Team. Program Controls is central to the project’s success, and we are seeking an experienced Program Lead Planner to join our Project Controls team in an onsite role in Casa Grande. This position will provide planning and scheduling support for a major capital project and serve as the primary day-to-day interface with the Director of Engineering and Construction to ensure the program schedule is properly developed and updated to meet program, project, and subproject execution goals.

The Program Lead Planner provides governance, leadership, tools, and guidance to the Underground and Surface Project Planners to support overall execution planning and forecasting, as elaborated in our execution schedule. Time management and work sequence recommendations, along with scenario analysis results, are to be provided directly to the Engineering and Construction project teams and the Director of Construction.

In general, you will assist in the development and maintenance of components of the Program Integrated Master Schedule, including baseline schedule development and review/support of Statements of Work to ensure adherence to overall project milestones. Through meticulous planning, coordination, and control, our program planner will work alongside project construction managers / technical discipline leads, leading a team of planners to execute in accordance with the baseline requirements. You are an expert in producing, updating, and reporting on our program schedules, while finding innovative solutions to our program issues. You are skilled at communicating and presenting project outcomes to technical and nontechnical team members.

Duties and Responsibilities:

Health & Safety

• Embody and promote the ‘Zero Harm’ values of Ivanhoe Electric.
• Be a role model who promotes Ivanhoe Electric’s business culture and contributes positively to the program goals by implementing the right balance for our teams, stakeholders, and community.
• Provide planning & scheduling leadership to 2 project planners, responsible for their respective projects.
• Identify, coach, and mentor talent to realize their potential.
• Display excellence in leadership in time management and delivery in line with the conditions of the role.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain the integrated project schedule in Primavera P6, covering engineering, procurement, construction, and commissioning activities with logic-driven networks.
• Establish and maintain the approved baseline schedule, including structures that promote earned value progress measurement and seamless reporting with the Cost teams.
• Work with individual Project Planners and project stakeholders (internal & external) to conduct regular schedule status updates with discipline leads and construction teams to capture accurate progress.
• Promote reforecasting techniques with the program team, as required, to ensure cost transparency for time dependencies.
• Provide effort for re-baselining the project/program as necessary to address partner/contractor performance issues.
• Perform critical path analysis, float analysis, and schedule risk assessments to identify threats and opportunities.
• Produce short-interval look-ahead schedules to support field execution planning.
• Analyze the schedule impact of changes and delays and prepare time-impact analyses (TIAs) as required.
• Work closely with cost control to ensure progress measurement is aligned between the schedule and earned value reporting. Communicate schedule drivers, critical path status, and recovery options clearly to project leadership and stakeholders.
• Maintain schedule change logs and support claims avoidance through rigorous schedule documentation.

• Identify and assess contractual/commercial risks linked to execution sequences/trade stacking.

Reporting & Controls

• Attend/facilitate progress meetings while building relationships and maintaining regular contact with internal and external stakeholders.
• Develop comprehensive project plans, define scope, timelines, and milestones, and report on actionable items for priority/critical tasks.
• Identify and manage resource loading, as well as any project deviations and slippages.
• Ensure that all issues within the program/projects are highlighted and understood by Senior Management and provide appropriate planning advice.

Systems and Information Management

• Use of Project Controls tools compatible with Microsoft Dynamics or Business Central and internal tools to track earned value progressing requirements with interfaces with Primavera P6.
• Manage the Primavera database for Ivanhoe and easily integrate partner/contractor schedules to ensure information integrity and a single point of truth.
• Implement and maintain the use of internal Business Management Systems (including Power BI) and delivery methodologies to ensure consistent delivery of Planning Management services.
• Compiling as-built or actual progress data for benchmarking/forecasting purposes.
• Drive knowledge management by capturing lessons learned and maintaining internal databases.

Skills and Experience Required:

• Excellent communication and presentation skills combining sound analytical planning principles with the ability to summarize and present execution strategy plans to technical and non-technical team members.

• Initiative-taking, purposeful, and capable of thriving in a multi-partner project execution delivery team.
• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, Construction Management, or a related field or equivalent; PMI-SP or AACE PSP certification is a plus.
• 10 plus years of scheduling experience on large-scale mining, heavy civil, or EPCM projects.
• Advanced proficiency in Primavera P6, including baseline management, resource/cost loading, and schedule risk analysis.
• Strong understanding of critical path method (CPM), float analysis, and earned value management (EVM) principles.
• Experience developing time-impact analyses (TIAs) and supporting project change management processes.
• Analytical thinking: strategic and logical thinking are vital to creating plans and producing reports.
• Proficiency in overseeing and supporting scheduling and monitoring progress to ensure successful and timely completion for concurrent projects.
• Support the planning team to achieve project milestones in line with the project goals.

• Skilled in providing directions, team management, and training of technical and non-technical personnel.

• Demonstrated skill in identifying, analyzing, and solving problems.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Excel and experience with Power BI or equivalent tools for schedule reporting preferred.

Work Pattern

• Site-based at Santa Cruz project office and site presence at the mine site on an as-required basis.
• Partial local remote work may be considered upon request.

Diversity Statements:

Ivanhoe Electric is an equal opportunity employer that recognizes the value of a diverse workforce. All suitably qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment on the basis of objective criteria and without regard to the following (which is a non-exhaustive list): race, color, age, religion, gender, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, or other characteristics in accordance with the relevant governing laws.

The Company offers a professional, entrepreneurial office environment and the opportunity to work alongside and grow with talented colleagues. The Company offers competitive compensation and an employee benefits package.