Early in my career, I supported the computers that ran a machine
shop factory. The factory was a large, open room filled with
machinery of every sort designed to form, cut and polish metal
fixtures. I remember things about that factory. One memory is of
the smell of machine oil. Another memory was of the cleanliness
of the aisles between the production machines. The primary
memory, however, was of the sound. When the factory was running
(most of the time), there were all kinds of sounds. Drills,
cutters, polishers and packaging machines were operating at the
same time. Though it was possible to carry on a conversation in
the factory, it was not the best place to hear or communicate
important messages. Of course, overhearing conversations was
just about impossible. There were ways to get around all of this
noise. - You could take advantage of the times that the factory
shut down. That removed all of the background noise.
Unfortunately (if your goal was talking instead of production),
this happened very infrequ