I work for a company whose primary business is metal recycling.  To give you a little background on what my situation is, at our facility we have the need to weld, cut and torch large pieces of metal.  We use both a plasma arc cutter and a gas torch to cut stainless steel, iron, aluminum and various other metals.  All of cutting is done outside but employees who weld, torch, cut and other employees within the area complain of the smoke and odors.  Does anyone have suggestions on how we can deal with the smoke and odor?  Would anyone recommend any products such as fume extractors or blowers/exhausters?

In my opinion, you have two issues. First, you need to determine if you have any exposures above the regulatory limits. I would test for all metals and their constituents (e.g. cadmium, chromium, nickel, lead...). If you haven't done it before, try talking to your insurance company and see if they have an industrial hygienist on staff. Otherwise, you can go straight to the market place. Second, if the test results come back high, then your obligated to implement engineering/administrative controls or PPE. If the test results come back within the limits then it becomes a worker comfort issue.

In either case, a blower or extractor would be useful assuming it can withstand the working conditions.

We have conducted test and all results are below PEL since the work is conducted outside.  It is more of a worker's comfort issue. 

I've contacted groups such as the American Welding Society (AWS) and all have suggested using respirators or blowers.  We are currently using respirators for employees conducting the cutting work but other employees working about 20-50 feet away are complaining about the odors depending on how the wind blows.  We have placed our hot work area as far from other employees as possible.  I want to exhaust (no pun intended) all of our engineering / administrative controls before issuing respirators to more employees.

Manufactures of fume extractors have said that their product works well indoors but, outdoors their products are not very affective removing smoke and odors.

Any other ideas?