Abstract:
The role the construction industry plays in socio-economic development is significant. In the whole effort concrete is one of the major construction materials which is produced from the three basic ingredients; namely, cement, aggregate and water. It is common in Ethiopia to build all the structural elements using conventional site mix concrete, where concrete is mixed on site and poured using manual labor. Now a day, Ready Mix Concrete (RMC) is one aspect of delivering fresh concrete to site in order to get the required quality and speed of construction which, of course needs considerable attention. Therefore, the principal objective of this research is determining the potentials form introduction to Bahir Dar from the view point of water availability, cement supply, aggregate quality and reliable source, the potential market demand of the product, leading to comparing and contrasting of the unit cost of RMC including transportation to the required site with that of the conventional Site Mix Concrete (SMC). In order to achieve the stated objective, literature review, face to face interview, questionnaire survey, examining aggregate test results and site observations were carried out. The results of the undertaken assessments show that more than 64% of the type of water being used in many projects doesn’t fulfill the set standards and those stated in reviewed literatures’ plant could not be starved from scarcity of cement. In general, the quality of both fine and coarse aggregates around Bahir Dar are within the acceptable limits of standards. However, about 68 percent of the fine aggregate and 71 percent of coarse aggregate sources couldn’t satisfy graduation requirements which need treatment; like, blending of different sources of aggregates. The fine aggregate in and around Bahir Dar contains high amount of silt and clay content and needs proper source selection, and washing of fine aggregate. The conventional SMC in Bahir Dar is facing many problems; like, shortage of skilled laborers, appropriate space for storage and handling of raw materials, wastage of raw materials on construction sites is beyond the set limits, improper mixing of ingredient materials in concreting process, properly maintaining the water to cement ratio, and generally the productivity of concreting is very low and time taking. In Bahir Dar, the estimated market potential for RMC is huge, this indicates that investors can start their RMC plant and capture the uncontested opportunity. The new entrant of RMC Plant can have an estimated market share between 183,695 m3and 222,504 m3. In the Bahir Dar construction industry, the majority of the respondents of the construction sector are aware and satisfied.C-25 is used for cost comparison between RMC and SMC concrete. The average price for RMC is 3065.27ETB/m3 which is 10% higher than the average conventional SMC that is 2780.96ETB/m3. This might be compensated by the quality margin, reducing labor cost, reducing wastage of raw materials, reducing cement amount, material discount from suppliers through bulk purchase, and increase in fresh concrete productivity and supply. As the results obtained in this research have shown, the introduction of Ready-Mixed Concrete to the Bahir Dar construction industry will surely resolve the current problem of the poor concrete use forever. And it would also lead to the proper and economical use of resources in general.