The Ready Mixed Concrete Industry supplies a valuable
construction product to the transportation, building sector, residential and
other construction markets. The industry is composed of varying sized family
owned business to multi-national corporations. Since it is a perishible product
ready mixed concrete production facilities are located in numerous metropolitan
and rural locations and typically within 60 to 90 minutes traveling distance
from any construction project.
It is estimated that there are about 6,000 ready mixed concrete plants that
produce the product and about 70,000 ready mixed concrete mixer trucks that
deliver it to the point of placement.
The ready mixed concrete industry consumes about 75% of the cement shipped in
the US. Besides portland and blended cement it uses a large quantity of
industrial byproduct material that would otherwise be considered waste products.
These include fly ash from the coal burning power plants, slag from the
manufacture of iron and silica fume from the silicon/ferro-silicon metal
industry.
NRMCA estimates the volume of ready mixed concrete produced in the US using some
validated assumptions and the data on cement shipments reported by the US
Geological Survey of the US Department of Interior.
The approximately annual ready mixed concrete production of 460 million cubic
yards represents a $30 billion industry.
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