What happened to the lamp factory in Bari, Italy. Closed down is my guess?

I noticed that all Dulux lamps now comes from China. The miniature T5 and the larger HE/ HO T5 tubes as well.

Are there any other Osram run factories left in Europe?

Hello Michael,
I am not sure about the exact fait of the Bari factory, however likely they closed down.

The only other Ledvance factory still operational in "Europe" that I know of is the smolensk plant in Russia.

Regarding Osram it does look a bit better. As much as I know there are still the factory's in Eichstätt (XBO and HBO lamps), Herbrechtingen (Automotive), Regensburg (LED semiconductors), Czechia (HMI).

What I do not know is if Radium is still part of Osram or independent again. If they are still part of Osram, then there is also the Wipperfürth factory (UV, Excimer, Infrared)

Best regards,

Alex

Thank you very much Alex.

That’s what I thought. There was also the Nove Zámky factory in Slovakia which I also think that they closed down as I haven’t seen new HID lamps for almost two years.

I thought Radium separated from Ledvance but I haven’t seen any new lamps from this company lately.

It doesn't wonder me. What radium makes now, are highly specilized lamps for industrial applications.

Hi, it was converted to build face masks due covid pandemic.
Now, there are some offers.
https://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/ex-osram-vertenza-vicina-svolta-AENlGaPC

Ok I see. At least there are some face masks still made in Europe and not all from CHINA.

Hello,
nice to see that the building is still used and not demolished.

best regards,
Alex

Ok I see. At least there are some face masks still made in Europe and not all from CHINA.

The face masks we have here in Israel, aren't made in China I think.

Isn’t Bari transferred to Inventronics who bought the Osram electronics division?  I think they are still making LED drivers, although it could be that everything was concentrated at Treviso in Italy.

Most of the other ex-Osram / Ledvance plants have been sold off to new owners.  Recently I had the immense pleasure to visit Eichstätt for some joint development works, that is possibly the most advanced lamp factory left in Europe, but it is also now fully independent of Osram & Ledvance, operating as Aurora Licht.  I have never before seen some types of traditional lamps, LEDs or drivers being made so fast or efficiently as there.

As far as I know Osram still owns the Berlin-B plant at Spandau.  Last time I visited there it was still making the Xenon automotive HID, XBO, various arctubes for HID outerjacketing in Slovakia and China, fluorescent starters, quartz and LED parts.

Radium is indeed fully independent and seems to be doing relatively well.

The former OsramSylvania operations in Americas were also now split off from Osram, as were many if not all of the former Ledvance/Osram Chinese lamp plants.

Well that’s interesting James! Thank’s for the update. What do you think about the future? Is there a chance that more lamps/ lighting related parts will be made in Europe again or is there still a strong movement toward China?

@James - I assume Aurora Licht is no longer in business?

https://kommunikasjon.ntb.no/pressemelding/18024467/gordon-brothers-partners-with-maynards-europe-to-sell-aurora-lichtwerkes-lamp-development-manufacturing-plant-assets?publisherId=4954260

Their Google page also lists them as permanently closed.

Indeed it is sad that the Aurora Eichstaett works closed down a year ago.  I followed the auction of its machinery, and was quite intrigued to see that someone bought its highly advanced lines for the high speed and fully automated manufacture of LED Filament E27 lamps.  I have not yet seen lamps of that design turn up from other companies, but it would be interesting to know if anyone succeeded in running those very elegant machines.  I wonder if they may have gone to India or SE Asia, or one of the Eastern EU countries where there are still a few surviving lamp manufacturers. 

@James - So, why did they close down? Dying traditional lamp market? Or did German government and the EU play a part in it with unrealistic environmental goals?

Also, how much of the machinery was sold, and how much was scrapped? I assume most HID stuff was not sold, and thus subsequently scrapped. What about other production lines?

As far as I understand from my visits to the factory, it closed down for two reasons.  Firstly because Ledvance stopped buying from them, and secondly because the German government decided to cancel a large order.  Nothing to do with enforced phase-outs of certain products, or the increasingly ridiculous environmental ambitions.

The factory had been opened in 1967 as Osram's principal production base for tungsten halogen and XBO lamps, and for decades was one of the most profitable.  It is interesting to read old visit reports made by colleagues from competing lamp companies about how efficient the operations were at Osram Eicshtätt, especially during the 1990s and early 2000s when there was a lot of investment in halogen.  But during the mid 2010s it came into difficulties as the global halogen business rapidly declined.  Also after Osram had relocated the XBO and HMI production to Berlin and England.  In 2007 there was a brief upturn when it began manufacturing electronic drivers, and in 2013-2014 when Osram followed the strategy of Sylvania in bringing its production of high volume LED retrofit lamps from China back to the European factories.  But that decision was reversed when Osram decided to sell of its general lighting business in 2016 to the Chinese investor MLS (which resulted in the creation of the new company Ledvance).  In a very short space of time the Ledvance management decided to go for the ultimate cost saving by closing all of its factories outside China.

The Eichstätt plant was saved from closure and transferred into private hands under the new name Aurora - something which happens increasingly often in Europe.  It is very expensive to close factories here, due to the high costs of severing contracts and paying out the employees.  So companies will often instead try to sell the factory to a gullible investor, with a promise to buy a certain percentage of its output for the next few years so as to sweeten the deal.  However, as soon as that period is over the decision is invariably taken to switch to buying its products more cheaply elsewhere, which leaves their old factory to collapse and somebody else to pay the costs of getting rid of the employees (or worse, bankruptcy, and then the employees get almost nothing).  This is what happened to Aurora, as Ledvance shifted more and more of its sourcing to China.  The new owners really believed that in this case they could innovate more quickly than others and tempt Ledvance to continue buying from them, or to find new customers and restructure itself so as to survive once the original owner stops buying, but that is always a risky change of strategy.

Outside the Levance sales, a very big part of Aurora's business was the manufacture of LED filament type retrofit lamps that were sold to the German state and utility companies, and distributed for free or at very low costs to households so as to reduce energy consumption and help the country meet its CO2 reduction targets.  It was unfortunate that they also suddenly decided to switch to cheaper imported lamps instead of supporting the local economy.  One of the main reasons for that was simply due to the factory's inability to deliver the very high production volumes that were required - so in any case its customer was forced to buy a certain percentage of its demand elsewhere.  When a very large tender was cancelled, the factory could not continue to pay its overhead costs and was declared bankrupt.  It is a pity that it all happened so quickly.  I know that some of the production departments at Eichstätt were extremely competitive and could easily undercut the costs of equivalent imported products - but there were other much older departments and of course the very large building that was not so efficient to operate.  If there had been more time perhaps they could have found a way to restructure and maintain a part of the production, but due to the sudden order cancellations the bankruptcy was declared before there was enough time to plan for such scenarios, really a shame.

It was notable during the auctions that not much of the lampmaking equipment was sold.  The main things to go were the type of equipment that can be used by other industries, such as the building facilities management equipment, and lab machinery like X-Ray machines, electron microscopes and other testing equipment that was an essential part of their R&D and quality control divisions.

That is a really unfortunate tale, James. A real pity, embarrassing even, that German utilities chose to source from overseas rather than support a factory in their locale.

You're saying their efficiency and cost of production was in competition with overseas products- how so? Did they automate large portions of their machinery, lower employee counts, or simply invest in their machinery with R&D to make it ultra-efficient? Also, if they were able to produce lamps so efficiently, how come they could not scale up the lines that were in high demand to meet the sales volume of the German utilities? And, being that it was employee-owned(??) who bore the brunt of the collapse? I assume employees working at the plant received a pittance, as you said bankruptcy results in almost nothing for the employees...