The client

Formed in 1981, ATR is the world's number one aircraft manufacturer in regional aviation providing a new generation of turboprops up to 78 seats. It is a Franco-Italian aircraft manufacturer headquartered on the grounds of Toulouse Blagnac International Airport in Blagnac, France.

The challenge

During the COVID-19 pandemic when hybrid work arrangements were introduced, staff of the ATR Singapore office experienced an increase in the number of corporate meetings being scheduled. The high volume of meetings highlighted a gap in ATR’s audio capabilities, as the productivity of meetings suffered due to poor speech intelligibility and connection issues.

The solution

Sennheiser’s TeamConnect Ceiling 2 was installed to capture audio during meetings and video conferences. The ceiling microphone ensured that meeting participants present in the office can be heard clearly by their colleagues who were dialing in remotely.

ATR’s new office was designed with Activity Based Working (ABW) concept in mind. The management had the idea of hosting important group meetings at the open area but faced many challenges when doing so, as the space spans 802 square meters. Without a proper conferencing microphone, the voices in the space could not be captured and transmitted clearly to remote meeting participants and hence the productivity of meetings suffered. Furthermore, due to the ABW concept, noises and voices from other areas of the office would also be captured.

ATR and their consultant visited Sennheiser’s regional office in Singapore which was also designed for ABW concept. They wanted to explore how the TeamConnect Ceiling 2 (TCC2) could work for ABW and be incorporated into their office. After site visits and discussions with our Business Development Managers (Spring Chong and Darryl Tan), ATR decided to install a unit of TCC2 in the open area of their office. The installation was executed by system integrator Electro-Acoustics Systems Pte Ltd and the process was smooth and straightforward.

Sennheiser’s TCC2 boasts new features in 2021, namely the TruVoicelift and advanced control zone. With TruVoicelift, speakers at the meeting can be heard clearly through targeted voice amplification. ATR also utilized the advance exclusion zone and priority zone function which allowed them the flexibility to precisely define the position of noise sources to be ignored and to limit the pickup area of the TCC2 to 8 seats within the office. Staff were able to activate and configure these features via the Sennheiser Control Cockpit which helped to enhance the audio quality.

With the installation of Sennheiser’s TCC2, the management can now conduct hybrid meetings where the audio transmission is excellent, and remote participants can hear what has been said and discussed clearly. Additionally, noises from within the exclusion zones are also not picked up by the ceiling microphone, which allows ATR to improve the productivity of their meetings while at the same time, upholding the essence of ABW in their office.

Find out more about TeamConnect Ceiling 2 with TruVoicelift!

ATR Eastern Support Website

Download case study