A combination of environmental restrictions, health and safety regulations, industry economic factors, manufacturing improvement programs, and new technologies have effected major and ongoing changes for metal finishing processes used for decades in aerospace and other military manufacturing and overhaul and repair operations.
Private companies and government institutions, including the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), are looking to new technologies to replace traditional metal finishing wet processes. Targeted benefits for the new technologies include:
>          Improve part durability/reduce maintenance
>          Reduce use of toxic chemicals and waste generation
>          Reduce manufacturing and rework cycle times
>          Maximize product yield & reduce resource consumption
>          Provide flexibility for changing workload
>          Reduce life cycle costs/increase net profits.
Advances in process and information technology provide a range of options for substantially improving conventional wet processes to achieve many of these benefits.
This paper will overview new technologies and best practices for conventional technologies, and will emphasize essential methodologies for transformational process improvement, life cycle optimization and sustainable manufacturing.  The paper will use case study information based on the authors’ direct experience at more than 30 aerospace surface finishing manufacturing facilities.