Bulk Transportation Planner - Beachwood, OH

About the role

The Bulk Transportation Planner reports to the Bulk Load Planning Team Lead and is responsible for the day-to-day planning, scheduling, tracking, and successful completion of outbound bulk shipments within an assigned geographic region. This role works closely with Customer Support, Sales, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and a focused network of bulk carriers to align customer demand with raw material and finished-goods availability, manufacturing capabilities, carrier capacity, and specialized equipment requirements. The coordinator uses sales forecasts, customer inventory data, telemetry-based tools, and available transportation capacity to anticipate demand and proactively address potential service constraints. The role focuses on optimizing how outbound bulk lanes are planned and executed to improve asset utilization, manage transportation costs, and provide safe, reliable, and on-time service to customers.

Responsibilities

• Plan and schedule outbound bulk shipments based on customer requirements, inventory and production availability, manufacturing capabilities, carrier capacity, and specialized equipment needs.
• Review open orders, sales forecasts, requested delivery dates, customer inventory levels, and telemetry information to develop daily and forward-looking transportation plans.
• Assign and sequence shipments to improve routing efficiency, equipment utilization, driver productivity, and transportation cost while meeting customer commitments.
• Manage shipments from initial planning through loading, transit, delivery, and confirmation of completion, maintaining accurate information within applicable systems.
• Monitor carrier acceptance, capacity fulfillment, equipment positioning, loading progress, shipment status, pickup and delivery performance, responsiveness, and adherence to established operating requirements.
• Proactively resolve or escalate capacity shortages, production delays, equipment conflicts, missed appointments, and other service risks while communicating timely recovery plans to affected stakeholders.
• Coordinate the availability and positioning of tank trailers, tractors, drivers, and other specialized bulk-delivery equipment required within the assigned region.
• Work with carriers and internal stakeholders to anticipate capacity and asset needs based on forecasted volume, customer inventory, seasonal demand, planned outages, and new business requirements.
• Identify equipment shortages, imbalances, idle assets, and underutilized capacity and recommend scheduling or repositioning actions.
• Serve as a primary day-to-day operational contact for assigned bulk carriers, communicating forecasted needs, shipment requirements, capacity expectations, and schedule changes.
• Address routine carrier issues and document recurring capacity or service gaps for escalation, corrective action, and carrier performance reviews.
• Partner with Customer Support, Sales, Finance, Manufacturing, and Supply Chain to understand customer priorities, demand forecasts, order changes, production schedules, inventory availability, loading capacity, and operational constraints.
• Optimize shipment planning to reduce empty miles, avoid unnecessary asset repositioning, improve equipment utilization, and minimize premium freight and avoidable accessorial costs.
• Recommend and support improvements to transportation systems, scheduling practices, carrier processes, customer requirements, and cross-functional workflows.
• Ensure carriers receive accurate product, equipment, delivery-site, and customer-specific handling instructions.
• Immediately escalate safety incidents, spills, contamination concerns, equipment failures, product-quality issues, and suspected compliance concerns.

Qualifications

• Minimum of a high school diploma or equivalent required; bachelor’s degree in logistics, supply chain, business, operations, or a related field preferred.
• Minimum of 3–5 years of transportation logistics; 5+ years preferred.
• Experience in bulk liquid transportation, tank-truck operations, chemical manufacturing, construction chemicals, or concrete admixtures preferred.
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple time-sensitive shipments, changing priorities, and operational constraints in a fast-paced environment.
• Strong planning, analytical, problem-solving, organizational, and decision-making skills.
• Effective written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to build productive relationships across internal teams and external partners.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office applications and experience working with ERP, transportation-management, order-management, telemetry, or shipment-tracking systems preferred.
• Familiarity with transportation cost drivers, carrier performance management, specialized bulk equipment, and applicable safety and regulatory requirements preferred.

Key performance measures

• On-time pickup and delivery performance
• Carrier capacity fulfillment
• Shipment planning and scheduling accuracy
• Equipment utilization and lane efficiency
• Premium freight, detention, and avoidable accessorial costs
• Proactive identification and resolution of service risks
• Timeliness and accuracy of shipment-status communication
• Reduction in preventable service failures

Schedule & location

This position is based in the Beachwood, OH office. Standard office operations hours are Monday to Friday, 8:00 am–5:00 pm; specific work hours required to support business operations should be confirmed with the supervisor. Minimal to no travel is required for this position.