Gigaset Cordless Telephone Production VIII: Soundscape at the Central Delivery Point

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 SMW 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.
This recording was made at the central delivery point of hall 50. This is where the finished and packed products are prepared for shipping. The individually packaged phones are transported from the production hall to the central delivery point via a pneumatic conveyor belt. Then staff scan each phone and put them into large cardboard boxes. A fork lift brings the boxes into the storage department from where they are shipped to retailers.
In the recording you can hear the clicking of the pneumatic conveyor belt, the beeping when the phones are being scanned, a large stapler that is used to close the card board boxes and the thudding sound of card board boxes being moved. Moreover, there is a radio playing in the background and the fork lift is driving by a few times.
Sound Recordist: Kathinka Engels
Photographer: Inke Pickhardt