Built for pneumatic tankers and hoppers
Dry bulk covers very different work under one name: pneumatic tankers blowing cement into silos, food-grade trailers that can't follow a chemical load, and grain hoppers running from farms to elevators at harvest. What they share is one-way freight and long empty returns, which makes the plan worth more than in almost any other segment.
What makes dry bulk dispatch hard
- Equipment and product rules. Food-grade, plastics and cement each need the right trailer, and some need a wash between loads.
- Plant and silo windows. Cement plants, mills and elevators load and receive on their own hours.
- Long empty returns. Most dry bulk is one-way, so the return leg decides the day.
- Harvest surges. Grain volume can double the board for weeks at a time.
- Unload times. Pneumatic unloads take real time on site, and the plan has to know it.
How Nivio plans dry bulk loads
Nivio's Proprietary Algorithm matches equipment and product rules before lanes, rules out incompatible pairings, and plans washouts as stops. It uses real load and unload times, holds every stop inside its window, and chains loads across the whole fleet so empty returns are as short as the map allows. Every driver stays inside their hours of service. The dispatcher reviews the plan on a map and releases it in under 30 minutes.
That is route optimization built for bulk work: single pickup to single drop, load to load, across the whole fleet at once. It is not multi-stop delivery routing, and it doesn't need to be.
$599K annual impact on a 75-truck sand fleet — 47.84% loaded mile, up from 43.25%. $1.48M on a 120-truck fuel fleet — 52.79%, up from 46.92%.
A companion to your dispatch software
Nivio Dispatch doesn't replace your dispatch software or TMS. It is the dispatch planning layer on top: it decides the best plan for your pneumatic tankers and hoppers, and your system dispatches it.
Loads and drivers come in from the spreadsheet you already keep, by hand, or from your TMS over the API. Driver clocks and positions can come from Samsara, Geotab or Motive; McLeod and TMW connect on request. When the plan is approved it goes back out as an export or as assignments pushed to your TMS, so drivers are dispatched from the system they always were.
Start with one day
No integration is needed to see the number. Send one day of your loads and drivers on our template; we solve the same day and hand back the comparison: total miles, deadhead, loaded percentage and what the gap is worth over a year. After that, the first 14 days are free on your own loads and drivers. For the deadhead side of one-way freight, see How to Reduce Deadhead Miles.
See your fleet's plan in under 30 minutes
Send us one day of your loads and drivers. We solve the same day and show you the gap against the plan your team ran.
See how Nivio Dispatch works →Questions
Is Nivio dry bulk dispatch software?
No. Nivio Dispatch is dispatch planning software. It works alongside the dispatch software or TMS you already run: it builds tomorrow's plan for your pneumatic tankers and hoppers, and the plan goes back to your system for dispatch.
Does Nivio handle food-grade and washout rules?
Yes. Incompatible load pairings are ruled out, and a wash can be planned as a stop with its own on-site time.
Can Nivio plan grain harvest peaks?
Yes. The plan is rebuilt for each day's loads and drivers, so a harvest board twice its usual size is planned the same way, in the same time.