Industrial Hygiene
Industrial Hygiene
Are you concerned about exposures to employees in a manufacturing facility? Indoor Science offers a wide range of industrial hygiene services. We have a team of Certified Industrial Hygienists (CIH) and respected consultants in the Chicagoland area. We can help you document OSHA compliance, do proactive exposure monitoring, or help you respond to an OSHA complaint.
Personal Monitoring
Our industrial hygiene services include both personal exposure assessments and area sampling for chemicals, particles, noise, thermal stress and more. Personal monitoring is performed when evaluating a worker’s exposure. Sampling equipment is unobtrusively mounted on the worker and draws air from the breathing zone. Industrial hygiene monitoring is often performed over an 8 hour period for regulatory compliance. It is important to compare results to OSHA’s Permissible Exposure Limits (PELs), which are often expressed as an 8-hour time-weighted average. For some select exposures, OSHA has short-term exposure limits (STELs) and ceiling limits as well. Our industrial hygienists will also compare results to other relevant exposure guidelines such as ACGIH TLVs and NIOSH RELs. Personal exposure monitoring is required if your concern is OSHA compliance.
Area Monitoring
Some projects call for area monitoring, rather than personal exposure monitoring. Area monitoring collects an air sample or measurement in a fixed location. Area monitoring might be used during an initial risk assessment to evaluate some of the important exposures that might be happening in the facility. For example, you may be unsure if workers are exposed to chemicals regulated by OSHA. Area monitoring can determine the extent of a problem throughout a factory or map out concentrations throughout a manufacturing facility.
For example, knowing what chemicals workers are exposed to is more complicated than just looking up the ingredients on safety data sheets (SDSs). Many manufacturing companies will do area monitoring to better understand the chemicals present before doing personal exposure assessments. Chemicals can often interact and result in an exposure to a chemical not found on SDSs.
Industrial Hygienist Services
Our certified industrial hygienists can perform OSHA compliance and monitoring work for just about any exposure. Our partner laboratories have capabilities to analyze thousands of different chemicals and other contaminants. Here are some of the most common parameters sampled in our occupational hygiene projects:
- Welding fumes
- Hexavalent chromium
- Asbestos
- Silica
- Noise
- Benzene
- Paint booth vapors
- Respirable dust and total dust
- Formaldehyde
- Mold, bacteria, sewage
- Methylene chloride
- Legionella
- Coronavirus
- Much more
Our Industrial Hygienists Find Solutions
Not only do we collect industrial hygiene air samples, we also help you interpret the results. For example, you may be below the OSHA PELs, but exceed the Threshold Limit Values (TLVs) set by the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) or the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Recommended Exposure Limits (RELs). We can help you evaluate solutions that follow the hierarchy of controls: elimination, substitution, engineering controls, administrative controls, and personal protective equipment (ordered from most important to least).
Call Indoor Science at 312-920-9393 or fill out our Get a Quote form to discuss your project with a Certified Industrial Hygienist (CIH).
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