During production of cold rolled, low-carbon steel sheet the material passes through a series of process steps. To be able to optimize the properties it is necessary to control the reactions occurring during each of the process steps. The influence on the surface chemistry for different steels of the following processes was studied: cold rolling, batch annealing, continuous annealing (especially the sub processes annealing, pickling, passivation, overaging), temper rolling and heat treatment prior to hot dip galvanizing.