Due to increasing cleanliness requirements and permissible remaining residues in the field of industrial parts production it is necessary to perceive the cleaning process as a highly important processing step. On behalf of the VDI Center Resource efficiency was therefore at the Fraunhofer IGCV together with the Fraunhofer IVV a study with this thematic perspective conducted. In particular the economic and ecological influence on the environment and the choice of the cleaning method and the adjustable process parameters to the increase of the resource efficiency should be shown to SMEs.