General Industrial Standard Followed for Metal Plating - US

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The Future of Finishing: - National Metal Finishing Resource Center

In addition to the national environmental regulations listed in #1 there are also local environmental agencies who may have additional requirements to be met before a permit to operate will be issued. California in particular has stricter regulations than most jurisdictions.

Also, there are a multitude of industry, military and commercial specs that can apply.

AS9100 for Aerospace quality systems, NADCAP aerospace prime contractor spec, SAE automotive specs, Mil-specs, individual customer specs such as BAC for Boeing.

Some days it seems as if everybody and their brother has written a spec.

Captive shops, or shops with one or two customers may only have to follow a few specs to get their parts out the door.

In job shops with multiple customers however, it is common to have a plating system, cadmium plating for instance, that is a lot harder to use than it should be due to trying to meet multiple specs in one system. Cad plating is reasonably easy to do and pretty forgiving in its application. Once the parameters are narrowed down to meet the intersection point of multiple specs, the target has narrowed enough to require frequent testing and chemistry adjustments that are really just wasted time and energy that do not contribute to the function of the finished part.

Alternatively, separate baths must be maintained to meet different manufacturer's requirements wasting energy and space.

Good luck,

Mike W.