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Planners, Programmers or Schedulers?

3 replies [Last post]
Sun, 2004-10-17 09:04
Gary France
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Dear all,

Can anybody help me to understand the differences between Planners, Programmers and Schedulers?

I call myself a Planning Engineer, in that I determine how long a construction project should take, what are the major stages, what the major milestones etc. In other words I plan the project as a whole, including design, procurement and construction.

I would say that a programmer then puts the detail on that, looking at individual activities, working out the precise sequence and timing of each.

I think a scheduler is the same thing as a programmer, this term scheduler mainly being used in the USA.

Am I right? What do you think these different terms mean? What do they mean in your industry and location?

Gary France
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Replies

Mon, 2004-10-18 03:19
#1
Raj Maurya
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Joined: 17 Jul 2004
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Groups: Petro-Chem / Oil & Gas
I think to understand difference between Planners and schedulers we should pass through the basic definitions.
Plan- This indicate to understand the project or goal to be achieved and what are the things to be done to get desired result with in the target time. Then make a frame for all tasks in best suiatble and logical sequence. So that is the work of Planners.
Schedule-Allocate the available/required (with best economy) resource to get the planned result and monitor & evaluate the actuals with time by time. This is the Scheduler. And for Programmer I agree with Gary that this is the different terminology being used by the Industries in different region.
I feel in present scenarios of work culture one person expected to do works as Planner, Scheduler and programmer of course it depends upon the work load & type of the organisation.
Raj
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Mon, 2004-10-18 01:49
#2
Shahzad Munawar
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I think that Planner is mainly responsible to estimate the project. On the basis of this estimation he develop different plans of a project which is best suited for execution in view of available resources and costs. His duties are not limited to planning he may involve in preparing Tenders, Rate analysis etc.

Whereas a Scheduler is responsible for controlling and monitoring the project as well as to prepare monthly progress reports, cash low and Trend Analysis etc.

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Sun, 2004-10-17 11:05
#3
Bernard Ertl
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Groups: Petro-Chem / Oil & Gas, TURNAROUND & SHUTDOWN (T/A & S/D)
In my experience within the petrochem industry, almost everywhere, the roles of maintenance planning and scheduling are combined and assigned to one individual (or a group). I can only remember one company where the scheduling function was dedicated to a single individual who was not responsible for the estimating/planning.

Capital projects are usually planned and scheduled by the same individual as well (and sometimes that is the engineer and not a dedicated planner/scheduler).

For my part, I view the planning function as organizing, estimating and preparing for a project. This can include preparing BOMs, bid packages, scope estimates/plans, etc. IMO, the scheduling function encompasses critical path scheduling of the scope and progress updating/analysis.

Bernard Ertl
InterPlan Systems - ATC Professional Shutdown / Turnaround Management System
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