Abstract—Roller burnishing is an important finishing operation that is widely used to improve metals’ tribological properties such as surface finish and hardness. Burnishing speed and depth of interference are key process conditions when it comes to maximizing the benefits gained from this operation. This study aims to optimize these two parameters in the case of roller burnishing of 6061-T6 aluminum rods in terms of their impact on surface roughness and hardness. To achieve results that are sound statistically, data collected from carefully designed factorial experiments were analyzed using the analysis of variance (ANOVA) approach. Mintab® was the statistical software of choice used to conduct actual computations and analysis of the data. Results showed that both surface roughness and hardness were improved. Surface roughness was reduced on average by 87.6% while hardness was increased on average by 14.5%.