Book excerpt: Surfaces are the bounding faces of solids. The interaction of component surface with the working environment results in wear and corrosion. Estimated loss due to wear and corrosion in the USA is around $500 billion. Engineered surfaces are the key to the reduction of losses due to wear and corrosion. There are surface engineering books on specific processes such as thermal spraying and vapor phase deposition or about specific heat sources such as plasma or laser. However, there are few, if any, covering the whole range of advanced surface engineering processes. Advanced Thermally Assisted Surface Engineering Processes has been structured to provide assistance and guidance to the engineers, researchers and students in choosing the right process from the galaxy of newer surface engineering techniques using advanced heat sources.