History

On April, 14, 1949, the USSR Council of Ministers adopted the Resolution No. 1416 on establishment of the lamp plant in Saransk city, the capital of the Mordovian ASSR; and in autumn, 1950, its construction has begun. It was planned that full capacity of the plant will be 50 million pieces of bulbs per year.

At night of 7th to 8th March, 1956, the first incandescent bulb was produced here, and before the end of the year overall production reached of 5,5 million pieces. This year Saransk electric-bulb plant, mastering incandescent lamps production, has started preparations for fluorescent lamps production in the meantime. On November,1, 1956, the first samples were manufactured with laboratory support, and in 1962, the unit in fluorescent lamps production was launched.

In 1964, electric-bulb plant became the nucleus of Saransk production association (SPA) "Lighting technique", which included the lighting plant of Ardatov, the electrovacuum machine building plant of Ruzaevka, glass and special light sources plants which were under construction that time; and a year after the electrotechnical plant of Kadoshkino village as well was included in SPA. The decision on establishment of this association was made to consolidate Mordovian enterprises in one powerful manufacturing complex to accelerate development rates of native lighting industry.

Being the part of SPA “Lightning technique” Saransk electric-bulb plant has started to develop more dynamically. In 1964, the production of the lamps of special purpose has started; 1965 - is the beginning of hand assembling of high-pressure sodium lamps of the type “Mercury arc lamp”; and in 1967 – is the beginning of their production. In the same year the billionth lamp was produced. The enterprise was on a course for 11 years and 9 months to produce the first billion of lamps. However, the plant quickly gained momentum: the manufacture of the second billion took just two years and two months.

SPA “Lighting technique” became the largest lighting company in Europe, which produced every third gas-discharge and every fourth Incandescent lamp in the USSR.

In 1978, the production of metal halide lamps has been launched. The event encouraged new developments and beginning of its large-scale production became the Olympic Games of 1980, which had place in Moscow. To provide a colour television broadcasting of the Olympic games totally new types of metal halide lamps were needed, which provide high quality color rendering and instantaneous re-ignition in case of lamp attenuation. There was not this kind of light sources in the native production. The nation's leadership faced a choice: to buy imported lamps or to organize its own production within a short time. It was decided to destine SPA "Lighting technique" as the official supplier of XX Olympic Games. In the shortest amount of time possible together with two leading lightning institutes of the country – the Scientific Research Institute of Light Sources named after Lodygin (Saransk) and the Russian Lighting Research Institute (Moscow) mercury arc lamps were developed and put into production. In the course of development fundamentally new technology for production of metal-halide lamp composition and its components was created. In 1978, it was decided to purchase the equipment for mass production of metal halide lamps at the “Iwasaki Electric”, Japanese company. Then a days it was one of the most advanced technologies. As a result our country became one of the first manufacturers of these type of lamp in the world, being alongside with Germany, USA, Japan, France and the Netherlands.

In 1989, the SPA "Lighting technique" was renamed as SPA "LISMA". The reason for this decision was the large number of enterprises with the same name in the country. To ensure awareness of Mordovian plant the word “lisma” has been taken from Moksha language denoted as “spring well, source”.

In 1992, LISMA became a joint stock company; in 1993, the plant became part of "Russian light" association uniting electric-bulb and lighting plants, specialized research institutes. In 2001, the enterprise put into operation high-performance system "Ribbon" for production of bulb bowls.

In 2007, LISMA was entitled as the State Unitary Enterprise of the Republic of Mordovia. By the way, in 1999, in recognition of substantial contribution to the region development and in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the first lighting plant the professional holiday was established in the republic – the Day of lighting technician.

In August, 2013, the agreement on lighting cluster founding in the republic, the aim of which to form the competence center for development and production of lighting products, sources and electronic elements. The cluster includes LISMA plant as well. In 2014, the enterprise has launched a large-scale investment program aimed at technical re-equipment, development and production of new types of lamps and improving competitiveness of the enterprise.

The first result of this program became the output of the innovative product on May, 2015 – LED filament lamp. Its luminary source is not a traditional tungsten filament, but the special LED one. Excellent performance characteristics of the LED lamp are combined with eye-comfort glow and conventional form of traditional incandescent lamp. But the most important advantage is its energy saving. For the present, this lamp is the most energy-efficient light source of the all commercially available ones. Thanks to which the novelty is increasingly gaining the new markets. Currently the range of LED filament lamps includes about 35 items.

The second promising direction is development and production of innovative light sources for street lighting.

Based on high-pressure sodium lamp, on a “classic of the genre”, LISMA specialists have developed a line of gas-discharge lamps of the type HPS SUPER with high light efficiency and improved performance specifications.

With extensive experience of light sources mass production LISMA makes major efforts to reduce the prime costs of new products in order for quality and really effective lamps will be available for anyone's. Future projects include the development and mass production of new types of lamps, the expansion of product sales geography, the increase of exports and the taking of leading positions not only in Russian and CIS markets, but in the world one as well.