English: 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. In this recording you can hear the clicking noises of a pneumatic conveyor belt, which transports the checked and packaged phones from the production hall to the central delivery point. At the central delivery point the phones are prepared for shipping. The pneumatic conveyor belt organises the arriving boxes by stopping them shortly and releasing them to avoid blockages or an overflow at the packing station. You can hear the constant rattling of the belt as well as the clicking and smacking noises of the pneumatic stopping mechanism. It consists of two “arms” that grab the passing box and bring it to a halt while the belt keeps moving. Since the recording was made during running production you can also hear background noises like the wheezing sound of transport vehicles, workers’ voices, fans and air conditioning and beeping sounds from various machines. Sound Recordist: Kathinka Engels Photographer: Inke Pickhardt

Video Recordist: Inke Pickhardt