Gigaset Cordless Telephone Production III: Engel “In Mould Decoration” Part I

Since 1941 Siemens has been producing telephones in the small town of Bocholt, Germany. Today there are still 550 workers making cordless telephones for Gigaset, which separated from Siemens in 2010.
In hall 50 Gigaset produces 8.000.000 cordless telephones per year, checks their quality and packages them until they are ready to be send to retailers: At the design centre they form the plastic cases of the phones. At the SMD-department large machines populate printed circuit boards (the telephone’s electronic core) and at the quality inspection all buttons and functions of the finished phones are being checked.
The Engel “in mould decoration”-machine, which can be heard in this recording, is part of the design centre. The machine adds the decorative silver frame to the black plastic front covers of the cordless telephones. For that the already finished black frame is combined with a silver foil in the shape intended. In another moulding process molten plastic granulates are injected behind this foil to solidify it.
This recording was made from the side where you can hear two robotic arms working. The first one grabs the silver foils (with a pneumatic system) and adds them to a frame that adjusts the position. The bigger arm takes the finished black plastic covers from a conveyor belt and puts them into the same frame as the silver foils (two at a time). Then it turns its picker arm, grabs both the silver foils and the plastic covers and puts them into the moulding machine, where the plastic is injected. At the same time as putting one pair of covers and foils inside the moulding machine it takes out a finished pair and drops it onto a conveyor belt.
Since the recording was made during running production you can also hear the sounds of other machines, air condition and movement in the background.
Sound Recordist: Kathinka Engels
Photographer: Inke Pickhardt
Video Recordist: Inke Pickhardt