Reduce Background Noise So You Can Hear the Important Stuff
Noise is often an overlooked environmental problem. We may become so accustomed to the sounds around us that we no longer notice how loud our environment actually is, or recognize the effects that excessive noise can have on our health, safety, comfort, and productivity.
Whether the noise is in a restaurant, office, manufacturing plant, warehouse, data center, or server room, reducing excessive sound can create a healthier, safer, and more productive environment.
Excessive noise can affect much more than our hearing. The level of sound, how long we are exposed to it, and how frequently the exposure occurs all contribute to its potential effects.
Harvard Medicine’s Noise and Health discusses the growing evidence connecting environmental noise with a variety of health concerns.
Prolonged exposure to loud noise can contribute to:
Industrial noise reduction is about much more than protecting workers’ hearing.
In manufacturing plants, warehouses, data centers, server rooms, and other industrial environments, excessive background noise can affect safety, communication, productivity, concentration, equipment monitoring, employee comfort, and even employee retention.
A worker who cannot clearly hear a supervisor, coworker, alarm, paging announcement, or equipment warning may miss important information. In an emergency, that communication problem can become a safety problem.
Reducing unwanted noise helps create an environment in which the sounds that matter can be heard and understood.
Better communication. Workers can understand one another more easily without shouting. This is particularly important when giving instructions, coordinating maintenance, or responding to an emergency.
Improved paging, intercoms, and alarm intelligibility. Lower background noise makes announcements, intercom conversations, alarms, and warning signals easier to hear and understand.
Fewer communication errors. Misunderstood verbal instructions can result in mistakes, delays, and potentially unsafe situations. Improving the signal-to-noise ratio helps make communication more reliable.
Improved safety. Workers are more likely to hear approaching vehicles, equipment warnings, unusual machinery sounds, and coworkers calling for assistance.
Hearing protection. Reducing prolonged exposure to machinery, cooling fans, compressors, generators, and other equipment can help reduce the risk of occupational noise-induced hearing loss.
Reduced fatigue and stress. Even when noise isn’t loud enough to damage hearing, persistent background sound can be tiring and distracting. A quieter workplace can be a more comfortable workplace.
Better concentration and productivity. Lower noise levels can help employees concentrate on detailed tasks such as equipment diagnostics, configuration, testing, assembly, and maintenance.
Easier equipment monitoring. Reducing general background noise can make abnormal equipment sounds—such as bearing noise, vibration, rattling, or airflow changes—easier for experienced technicians to recognize.
A better working environment. Employees may simply prefer working in a quieter, more comfortable facility. Improving the acoustic environment can therefore contribute to employee satisfaction and retention.
Reduced noise transmission. Acoustic barriers, enclosures, panels, baffles, silencers, and vibration-isolation products can help prevent equipment noise from spreading into offices, control rooms, neighboring work areas, or outside the facility.
To learn more, see Workplace Noise: More Than Just “All Ears” from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).
Every environment is different. A manufacturing plant with stamping equipment presents a very different acoustic problem from a data center filled with cooling fans and HVAC equipment.
The best solution begins with understanding:
Where is the noise coming from? How loud is it? Who is being affected? How is the sound traveling? And what needs to be heard more clearly?
Once the problem is understood, the appropriate combination of acoustic barriers, absorption, enclosures, vibration isolation, silencers, and other noise-control technologies can be selected.
There is no single solution for every noise problem. Effective noise control usually begins by identifying the source of the sound, measuring its level, and determining how it travels through the environment.
The appropriate combination depends on the source, frequency, intensity, and location of the noise, as well as the requirements of the facility.
To learn more about how noise levels can be reduced, see Noise Control for Better Environments.
One frequently overlooked benefit of noise reduction is its effect on security and life-safety communications.
An advanced paging or intercom system cannot communicate effectively if employees cannot understand the message over excessive background noise.
Reducing unwanted noise can improve the effectiveness of:
Noise reduction becomes even more valuable when these communication systems are integrated with other security technologies.
For example, pressing an emergency button could automatically alert security personnel, display nearby surveillance cameras, initiate an IP paging announcement, control selected doors through the access-control system, and activate visual notification devices.
The objective is therefore not simply to make the facility quieter.
It is to reduce unwanted sound so that important sounds can be heard and understood.
Noise reduction is much more than making an environment quieter.
A properly designed noise-reduction solution can help protect hearing, reduce stress and fatigue, improve concentration, increase productivity, improve communication, reduce errors, and create a safer and more comfortable workplace.
And when noise reduction is combined with paging, intercoms, emergency communications, and integrated security systems, there is an additional benefit: Reduce unwanted noise. Improve critical communications. Increase safety and security.
Please get in touch with us if you would like help determining the best way to reduce unwanted noise in your organization. We can be reached at 914-944-3425, by email at dennis@kintronics.com, or through our contact form.
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