Ravenna Lamp

Ravenna Lamp Plant was the penultimate lamp factory to have been constructed by GE in USA, and was opened in 1971. Prior to this date the company's high intensity discharge lamps had been produced under the close supervision of the scientists and engineers at the NELA Park headquarters - at first within the Cuyahoga Building, and then in the state of the art new premises of Edison Park. Major new prodcts were the Multi-Vapor and Lucalox lamps of the mid 1960s, and after a decade the production volumes had risen and the manufacturing processes had been sufficiently refined that production could be decentralised to a factory operation. That was the purpose for which the Ravenna Lamp Plant was built, on a 56.4 acre tract of land. As such, Ravenna was one of GE's highest technology production sites, and as the workforce built up towards its peak of around 400 staff, it was responsible for introducing several firsts in the world of HID lamps. However at the beginning of the 21st century it began to come under increasing cost pressures following GE's takeover of the Hungarian state-run lampmaker Tungsram - and then even lower cost Chinese competitors. Its final demise was triggered by an accelerated transition to LED products in street and industrial lighting. In 2013 GE announced its intention to close the facility, which had dwindled to just 30% of its capacity. Production finally came to a close in March 2014 with the loss of the final 164 jobs.

Prior to the start of lampmaking, GE Lighting had already established its Master Distribution Centre at Ravenna in 1964. The vast new warehouse was built to receive the majority of the output of GE's fourteen American lamp plants, and kept 80 million lamps on stock. Highly automated warehousing systems were built up, and Ravenna excelled in delivering over a billion lamps per year directly to end customers as well as to other GE distribution centres. The Master Distribution Centre was not affected by the closure of the lampmaking operations, and is still in service.