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How to clear the air inside metal fabrication facilities

A webcast provides guidance on OSHA regulations and ways to improve air quality for fabricators

To attract young people to manufacturing, companies need to provide a clean indoor work environment.

If companies want to attract the best and brightest to consider a manufacturing career, they need to create environments that are welcoming to young workers. One of the most important things that these companies can do is provide for a clean indoor work environment. Getty Images

The COVID-19 crisis has gotten all of us thinking about what we might be breathing into our own lungs. If a person is sneezing next to you, even outdoors, you probably greet that individual with a glare. After all, you don’t really know what type of particulates are being released into the atmosphere near you.

That same kind of thinking can be applied to any facility where metal manufacturing is taking place. Just what are people inside that facility breathing in if they aren’t wearing a respirator or working near some sort of venting equipment?

That’s reality, however. Dry particulate from metal cutting activities can be hanging in the air, or wet particulate from coolant and oils can be airborne as well. Without the proper ventilation equipment, people who show up to do a job in a metal fabricating facility could be endangering their lungs over the long term.

It doesn’t have to be that way, of course. An upcoming webcast can help to illuminate just how dust and mist can pose a hazard to employees—and possibly the facility—and what metal fabricators can do to minimize that risk.

The webcast, “Indoor Air Quality Issues and Filtration Options for Metal Fabrication Facilities,” scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 12, at 2 p.m. ET/1 p.m. CT, will cover:

  • Common causes of contaminated air
  • Health and safety risks related to poor air quality
  • Specific issues associated with fine dust and mist
  • OSHA regulations governing facility air quality
  • Ways to improve air quality and ensure quality return air using high- efficiency filtration

Randi Huckaby, product manager, dry filtration air pollution control global, Camfil APC, will lead the webcast. She has been with Camfil APC since 2014 and has served in the field of manufacturing engineering for 13 years.

To register for this webcast, click here.

Metal fabricators have enough of a challenge convincing people to consider a career in the industry. The ones that elect to work in metal fabricating facilities shouldn’t have to worry about the indoor air quality at their places of employment.

About the Author
The Fabricator

Dan Davis

Editor-in-Chief

2135 Point Blvd.

Elgin, IL 60123

815-227-8281

Dan Davis is editor-in-chief of The Fabricator, the industry's most widely circulated metal fabricating magazine, and its sister publications, The Tube & Pipe Journal and The Welder. He has been with the publications since April 2002.