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UNITED STATES rogNERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE (qI;r
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20540
HUMAN RESOURCES
,]VISON DEC 24 1980
The Honorable Eula Bingham
Assistant Secretary for Occupational
Safety and Health
Department-of Labor 114129
Dear Ms. Bingham:
Subject: rSome Work Done by OSHA' Maintenance
and Calibration Laboratory Appears
Unnecessarf(HRD-81-40)
We visited the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's
(OSHA's) Maintenance and Calibration Laboratory (Laboratory) in
Cincinnati, Ohio, as part of our review of inspections and con-
sultations by OSHA and State industrial hygienists. We plan to
report *eparately on the adequacy of industrial hygiene inspections
and consultations. This report deals with equipment calibration
and maintenance operations at the Laboratory.
Based on our limited work at the Laboratory, it appears that
some work done there was unnecessary. Laboratory officials were
unable to provide objective bases for the calibration and main-
tenance frequencies established for equipment used by industrial
hygienists.
BACKGROUND
The Laboratory maintains, calibrates, repairs, and tests
hazard detection equipment. As of February 1980, the Laboratory
had 25 employees. It calibrated and/or repaired about 30,000
pieces of equipment a year.
Our work at the Laboratory included interviewing officials,
reviewing procedures, and examining workload reports [Because
workload data was not always consistently reported, t4 periods
covered by some statistics cited in this report vary.
We also talked ith officials of the Mine Safety and Health
Administration (MSHA) and the Department of Health and Human
Services' Bureau of Radiological Health about their maintenance
and calibration practices.
(206880)
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