Key Tasks and Responsibilities

The position holder will do the following:

• Collect top-level requirements for planning and evaluate all relevant technical and programmatic documentation available at mission level;
• Advise study management team where supporting information is lacking and proactively collaborate to generate it, in support of a realistic schedule build-up
• Evaluate all available master schedules throughout the industrial consortium (e.g. but not limited to: ESA, industrial primes, CFIs) and issue recommendations for improvement
• Work with discipline technical leads to define the network logic, interfaces, key milestones and need dates
• Proactively verify the consistency between the schedules of the Industrial Contractors and CFI providers with respect to those of their lower tier suppliers, if available, to identify potential problem areas and to propose relevant mitigation actions
• Attend meetings as requested
• Set up trend charts and templates for reporting mission progress, in line with agency best practices, tools and in close cooperation with mission management team
• Integrate and develop the study mission schedule in collaboration with the study management team and discipline technical leads: define work activities and milestones, define durations and assign dependencies, create calendars and network logic, consider schedule size and granularity, run risk assessments and allocate relevant margins
• Run critical path analysis, advise on schedule risks and runs schedule scenarios
• Assist in planning the project work-scope across multiple international teams (ESA, industrial primes, CFIs)
• Monitor and control the preliminary mission master schedule: perform complex schedule analysis including metrics, critical path analysis, schedule risk evaluation, float summary and assess the schedule performance at mission level 
• Determine the criticality of schedule activities, evaluate and recommend alternatives for schedule improvement to the study team for discussion and/or decision, run simulations and what-if scenarios in support of mission management and technical teams decision process; 
• Set up trend charts and templates for reporting mission progress, in line with agency best practices, tools and in close cooperation with mission management team
• Prepare reports documenting the analysis and communicate on the content to the study team as well as to external stakeholders via the working interface 
• Support all project stakeholders in understanding the current status of the planning in their work domain and issue recommendations for improvement, with particular focus on payload follow-up for science missions due to its high importance in the mission
• Proactively verify the consistency between the schedules of the Industrial Contractors and CFI/Payload providers with respect to those of their lower tier suppliers, if available, to identify potential problem areas and to propose relevant mitigation actions
• Develop, integrate and update the study mission schedule in collaboration with the study management team and discipline technical leads: define work activities and milestones, define durations and assign dependencies, create calendars and network logic, consider schedule size and granularity, run risk assessments and allocate relevant margins to enable accurate critical path analysis
• Create and update on monthly basis mission trend charts
• Run regular schedule update meetings with the study team and issue updated versions of the Preliminary Mission Master Schedule, as per instructed frequency
• Attend meetings as requested
• Plan, schedule, monitor and control all mission schedule portfolio submitted by various mission stakeholders in line with contractual agreements (e.g. but not limited to: Agency Controlled Milestones, SoW, MARD)
• Work with discipline technical leads to develop schedules, define key milestones, identify critical and subcritical paths, assess schedule risks, list deliverables and assist in planning the project work-scope across multiple projects and teams
• Aggregate and synthesize lower level schedule inputs from industrial consortium and CFIs into a Mission Master Schedule, with particular focus on payload follow-up for science missions due to its high importance in the mission

Skills & Experience

You will have the following qualifications and relevant experience:

• Master’s degree (or equivalent) in a relevant discipline (Engineering or    Business Administration) ;
• 4 years’ experience is project planning for aerospace projects;
• Experience with: Microsoft Project Professional; Visio Professional;  Office Timeline Microsoft 365 Office Software;
• Expertise with the techniques that allow the use of such software tools to provide active schedule management and best scheduling practices;
• Experience with the schedule peculiarities of spacecraft development is an asset;
• Fluency in English is mandatory; knowledge of another European language is an advantage.

This job is located in Noordwijk.

If you think you have what it takes for this job, please send your CV (in English and in Word or PDF) to Viktoria Panicharova, by clicking on the button “Apply for this job” quoting job NL-HP-24111.

An exciting and dynamic international working environment awaits you!