Precast is heavy, and heavy things are priced by the mile. Past a certain radius the freight exceeds the piece, and a plant that looked competitive on unit price stops being a candidate at all. Every experienced buyer knows this. Almost no catalogue encodes it.
The radius is part of the product
Treat delivery region as a first-class attribute and the search results change meaning. You are no longer looking at everything that exists; you are looking at everything that can reach your site at a price that makes sense. That is a much shorter and much more useful list.
- Permit thresholds change by state, and an oversize load changes the cost curve sharply.
- Backhaul availability can move the number more than the plant’s own efficiency.
- Crane hours at the site are often the binding constraint, not the trip itself.
The practical rule: filter by what can be delivered before you compare on price. Sorting a national list by unit cost produces a ranking that is mostly noise.
