1. Many board shops will do a final clean operation (typically a saponifying heated detergent spray rinse, tap water and final DI water rinse), just prior to the boards being packaged and shipped to the customer. This is done to remove any contaminants that can arise from handling when the panels are routed into boards, electrically tested, etc.This is primarily done to make sure the boards are clean when they leave the board shop, look good and will meet ionic cleanliness requirements if a random sample is selected. You might want to contact your board supplier(s) to see if the do this final clean step. If so, you probably would not need a pre clean prior to assembling the boards. 2. There are some assemblers that do use dish washer type machines to clean fully assembled boards. In fact, ECD in Oregon makes a dish washer type machine specifically for cleaning assembled boards. The down sides are that the machines will only hold a few boards (no good for any kind of volume production), the cycle time is quite long (up to 1 hour - similar to a dish washer) and the assembled board is subjected to long exposure in a very high temperature/high humidity environment. I would think the solvent cleaning/vapor degreasing you are now using would be a better approach, especially with the RMA solder pastes you are now using. Hope this helps. Larry Fisher Allen Woods & Associates