Key Tasks and Responsibilities

The position holder will do the following:

• Co-ordinate project schedule and risk support ensuring common approaches are followed; common tools are used where possible; improvements are suggested, and the service operates as independently as possible under the service work package manager and guidance of the WPTR as required.
• Provide expert schedule and risk support, inputs, evaluations, and recommendations to project teams during major procurement activities, (e.g. ITT, CCB), programmatic reviews (e.g. IPREV) and technical reviews (e.g. PDR, CDR).
• Provide expert input to project teams for the definition and update of project Schedule and Risk Management Plans.
• Support the BUC office in the definition, update, and reporting of project CACs, by integrating resources, cost, risk, and schedule in the HRE tools as required.
• Set-up and configure schedule and risk tools and in close cooperation with project control and each project core team.
• Support and assist project teams in their schedule or risk management process including ESA interactions with international partners and industrial consortia.
• Perform the function of the book captain for schedule management at project level ensuring configuration control is maintained on baseline and working schedules files and documentation.
• Provide support to project teams in schedule control and periodic monitoring of its industrial consortia against the approved baseline schedule:
• performing complex schedule analysis including metrics on quality, critical path analysis, float summary and assess the schedule performance at the required level.
• performing integration, development, and update of the schedule in collaboration with the project 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.
• coordinate and support schedule/risk meetings with the ESA project teams, industrial consortia and National Agencies, (e.g. review schedule from industry and prepare a list of topics to be discussed by ESA in the status meetings with industry)
• Determine the criticality of schedule activities on the projects, evaluate, and recommend alternatives for schedule improvement, recovery, and acceleration to the technical teams for discussion and/or decision. Run simulations and what-if scenarios in support of management and technical decision process.
• Set up and maintain trend charts and templates for reporting progress, in line with agency best practices, requirements for interactions with International Partners and Industrial consortia.
• Set up and maintain schedule performance indicators and quality metrics for project schedules.
• Prepare periodic quarterly and ad-hoc reports documenting schedule performance status and analysis and communicate on the content to the project team as well as to external stakeholders via the working interface.
• Support all project stakeholders in understanding the status of the planning in their work domain and issue recommendations for improvement.
• Proactively track and verify the consistency between the schedules of the Industrial Consortia and other providers (if any) with respect to those of their lower tier suppliers, if available, to identify potential problem areas and to propose relevant mitigation actions.
• Provide expert support to the ESA Project Manager, project controller and project team in the risk management process, including recommendations for schedule recovery or acceleration, definition of mitigation plans and follow-up of actions.
• Support project control in the definition, update and issue of the integrated Master Schedule required at program level.
• Perform project or mission close-out schedule related activities, if required

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;
• Experience with schedule narrative including schedule assumptions, critical path as well as substantiation of the schedule risk margin and basis documentation;
• Experience with schedule simulations and planning scenarios;
• Experience with schedule risk analysis, assumptions, and results;
• Experience with the schedule peculiarities of spacecraft development is an asset;
• Experience with procurement planning and monitoring is an asset;
• Fluency in English is mandatory ability to write technical documents in English;

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-24147.

An exciting and dynamic international working environment awaits you!