2. Identification of Personal Protection Equipment. National Institute of Justice respiratory protection

2. IDENTIFICATION OF PERSONAL PROTECTION EQUIPMENT

An extensive market survey was conducted to identify commercially available personal protective equipment. This market survey encompassed the assessment of past market surveys, identification of new equipment, and interaction with numerous equipment vendors.

2.1 Identification of New Equipment

A variety of sources were utilized to identify commercially available personal protective equipment, including a Commerce Business Daily (CBD) Announcement, literature searches, database searches, Internet searches, technical conferences, and technical contacts. These sources resulted in the identification of 69 respiratory protective equipment items.

2.2 Vendor Contact

Vendors were contacted two separate times in order to obtain additional product information, as well as to finalize their specific equipment data for inclusion in the guide. An initial contact occurred in the Fall of 1999, at the Ninth International Society for Respiratory Protection (ISRP)

Conference held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where the manufacturers and vendors supplied detailed information about their products.

The second contact was made during March 2001. Each vendor again received a facsimile or an electronic mail message that contained the data sheets for their specific equipment item(s), the selection factors that were developed to assist with the selection and purchase of the most appropriate equipment, and the results of the evaluation of the respiratory protective equipment against the selection factors. The vendors were asked to review the data sheets and tables for completeness and accuracy of the incorporated data.

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