Costing for Passivation

Q.  My customer's specifications require that I perform 140°F passivation for a minimum of 10 minutes to the parts. How do I price the cost of passivating into my bid?  –S.D.

A. That is a wide open question depending largely on your cost of labor, cost of capital, existing passivating business volume and size of the job you are quoting.  You will need an absolute minimum of two stainless steel tanks to perform the passivation, one for the passivating acid (either citric or nitric acid), along with a rinse tank.  Unless the parts are very small, you will likely need materials handling equipment which would entail at least a simple I-beam over the tanks and air hoist along with stainless steel baskets to hold and transport the parts.  The passivation tank and possibly the rinse tank will need to be heated.  Possibly the least expensive short term solution would be in tank immersion heaters for each.  The passivation process would be at least 20 minutes per batch, although the employee performing the passivation could perform other tasks between processing loads.  Cost of chemicals is not very significant relative to the other items mentions.  Costs for disposal should also be considered and will vary based on your manufacturing location.