SIC 3471 Electroplating, Plating, Polishing, Anodizing, and Coloring

Contenidos

• NAICS CODE(S).
• INDUSTRY SNAPSHOT.
• BACKGROUND AND DEVELOPMENT.
• CURRENT CONDITIONS.
• INDUSTRY LEADERS.
• RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY.
• FURTHER READING.

SIC 3471

This category includes establishments primarily engaged in all types of electroplating, plating, anodizing, coloring, and finishing of metals and formed products for the trade. Also included in this industry are establishments that perform these types of activities on their own account, on purchased metals or formed products. Establishments that both manufacture and finish products are classified according to their products.

NAICS CODE(S)

332813

Electroplating, Plating, Polishing, Anodizing, and Coloring

INDUSTRY SNAPSHOT

In 2001, there were a total of 3,241 establishments in this industry, with more than 70,000 employees and a payroll exceeding $2 billion. According to the 2001 Annual Survey of Manufactures, 55,652 workers were in production jobs, and shipments were valued at just under $5.9 billion. Employment was projected to rise to 77,000 by the mid-2000s, with shipments estimated to reach a value of nearly $7.4 billion.

There were two types of firms in the industry: small, private corporations and large, publicly held companies that were either subsidiaries or divisions of larger parent corporations. While larger firms were often more diversified in the number of electroplating and finishing processes they utilized, smaller firms tended to specialize in one or two types of finishing processes. During the 1950s and 1960s, many companies established their own finishing operations, but with the onset of increased environmental regulation of the industry in the 1970s many manufacturing firms opted to subcontract for finishing services, thus avoiding the added costs of waste treatment. Later, the trend once again was for manufacturing firms to own and operate their own finishing operations, often integrating production and finishing processes.

BACKGROUND AND DEVELOPMENT

Historically, the most important activity in this industry was electroplating. Electroplating entailed adhering a thin metal coating to an object by immersing it into an electrically charged solvent containing the dissolved plating metal. Metals commonly used in plating included copper, nickel, chromium, zinc, lead, cadmium, tin, brass, and bronze, as well as precious metals such as gold, silver, and platinum. Electroplating served a number of functions, such as protecting from corrosion and wear, decoration, and electrical shielding.

Alessandro Volta's creation of the battery in 1800 first made electroplating possible. Commercial electroplating began around 1840. Before the development of commercial nickel plating in the 1910s, the metals most commonly used for plating were silver, gold, and brass. Nickel plating tarnished and developed green corrosion, but that problem was eradicated in the late 1920s with the development of commercially practical chromium plating. This was a key development in the history of the industry, especially in regard to plating applications for the automobile and appliance industries. Though nonmetallic materials had been electroplated since the mid-nineteenth century, they became increasingly important for the industry after the 1963 development of ABS plastic, which lent itself to electroplating.

Of increasing importance for the industry in the 1980s and early 1990s was plating utilized as electrical shielding, particularly for the plastic housings of computers. The Crown City Plating Company, based in El Monte, California, developed the electroless process used for such shielding around 1970.

The solvents used...