A batch plant is the concrete mix plant where the aggregates, cementitious materials, chemical admixtures, and water are metered and combined together to produce hydraulic cement concrete. A batch of concrete is the amount of material mixed at one time. The batch plant can be a commercial concrete batch plant or a temporary batch plant brought in and assembled by the contractor near the paving site. On large concrete paving projects, most contractors choose to mix their concrete using their own temporary batch plant. This is because commercial batch plants are usually too small to produce the large amount of concrete needed for a concrete paving project.

Common methods of mixing concrete are:

Volumetric mixer-mixed and hand-mixed concrete are rarely used for concrete pavement construction and are not covered in this document. The other three mixing operations are described below.