Project Outline
Installation of a food factory tannoy system and background music/radio to the ‘Cook Kitchen’ site in Sittingbourne Kent. A large industrial food production site with a range of food production aspects – cooked prepared and frozen meals.
The project site is a new food factory production facility (strip out and re-build of existing factory site). Much of the site is dedicated to the various processing stages of the production, with some additional office and warehouse areas. A food factory tannoy system and background music/radio system was requested and installed to provide communication in support of important employee announcements and to help support improved ambience with background music/radio.
Audio Applications
- Public Address (PA) / Tannoy
- iOS/Android Paging App (wifi paging from mobile-app devices)
- Background Music (BGM)
- Mass Notification
- Scheduled Audio Message (break times, process changes)
Audio Specification & Technologies
- 100v line, high impedance speaker distribution
- IP Paging / IP Tannoy Gateway
- IP music/radio player (tacks, playlists and web streaming)
Installation Details
The initial phase of the project involved a detailed site wide survey and assessment to create an audio coverage plan. Working with the end customer and the main electrical contractors, we compiled a coverage roll out plan against a number of practical installation challenges.
- Production process lines and equipment
- Temperature – high & low areas
- High ambient background noise (production and other workplace noise)
- Confined & limited access
These challenges are not unique and were somewhat expected. Having previously installed sound systems into many similar factory and production projects these challenges were discussed with the client and supporting project teams, with a number of provisioning and protective measures put in place to assist the installation whilst mitigating possible disruption to the production.
High impedance, 100v line speakers (wide range, 2-way), were installed throughout. To cope with regular wash and clean down processes, specialist high ingress protection speakers (IP66) were specified and installed throughout.
To provide flexibility for tannoy access and announcements, we installed an IP audio gateway which allows users to make tannoy announcements via wifi connected devices through a mobile-paging app. This tannoy announcement option offers a simple user interface with location independence (not from a fixed location, like a microphone).
