Iskra (company)
Iskra (Slovenian for Spark) was a large Slovenian companies in the electrical industry in former Yugoslavia. The corporate form was SOUR. The resultant of Yugoslavia in the 1990s by privatization after the declaration of independence of Slovenia Slovenian successor companies are joint stock companies.
Business
The company was founded in 1946. The number of employees increased from an initial 800 to more than 35,000 (as of 1987) on. Iskra was thus one of the largest Yugoslav industrial companies and one of the strongest exporters of the country. In the 1980s, around 30% of production was exported to 78 countries. In Germany, the company primarily with electricity meters, in Austria was also present with phones.
Office of the company was officially Ljubljana, the largest Iskra- work there was in Kranj. Other factory locations have included in Idrija, Vrhnika, Sežana, Nova Gorica, Semič and Horjul.
Were manufactured a variety of electrical equipment and installations, including electric motors, starters and alternators, electric meter, electronic components such as capacitors and tubes, power tools, telephone systems, telephones and computers and televisions and solar cells on a laboratory scale. In the 1960s, Iskra has also produced radio devices.
Involvement in PCB environmental scandal
For Iskra Group included the division capacitors with production site in Semič ( Bela Krajina ) in the south of Slovenia. This operation had to weddings about 2000 employees. In 1984 years, it was revealed that the river Krupa due to improperly stored waste from the company Iskra Kondenzatorji from Semič with PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls ) has been contaminated.
The contamination was discovered by accident by scientists at the Health Department in Maribor and later in Ljubljana, as they investigated the source of the Krupa on their use for the production of drinking water for the Bela Krajina. Particularly problematic is the fact that this is a karst landscape. Even today, the burden of PCBs is high and can be detected in soil samples, fish in water, pets, etc.. This poisoning with PCBs counts as one of the biggest environmental scandals in the former Yugoslavia and was one of the main reasons for the formation of a green party and the emergence of a civil society in socialist Slovenia.
The original company was rated as " Tovarna kondenzatorjev Semič " ( German: Capacitors Factory Semič founded " in 1951 by Laibach " elektroveze Institut za "The production initially comprised of paper, plastic film capacitors, power capacitors to cover the domestic demand in the first year were. . 40,000 capacitors manufactured. the factory in Semič was connected by a realignment of the Institute to the telecommunications sector. spćter the Institute itself was renamed in IEV ( Industrija za elektroveze ). in 1961 the Untrnehmen ISKRA Kranj, to which the operation was in Semič was connected. in 1989 it was renamed ISKRA Industry of Kondenzatorjev in opreme Semič. the number of employees varied between the years 1992 and 1996 1441-1340 employees. in 1996 it was converted into a public limited company. was given at the beginning of 2001 this company a new majority shareholder ( with 59.46 % equity share ), namely AEG capacitors and transformers GmbH. At that time, about 1105 people worked in the company.
The company was bought in 2010 by the company Iskra MIS, which was created in 2005. Meanwhile Iskra MIS is part of the Iskra sistemi dd, Ljubljana. To Iskra MIS heard the subsidiary Iskra Turizem which the ski center Gace in Bela Krajina operates among others, and the campsite Primostek.
Design
Davorin Savnik was chief of the Office of Industrial Design of Iskra in Kranj. His 1979 designed phone Iskra ETA has won in the 1980s numerous design awards (including the iF Design Award (Hanover) ). Two U.S. and a South Korean company that had made a plagiarism of this phone were 1985 and 1986 as "excellent" with the Plagiarius.
More Iskra- products that have been designed by well-known designers, were the electric drills by Albert Kastelec (late 1960s), and the multimeter Iskra Digimer I Marijan Gnamuš (1971).
Privatization
After the independence of Slovenia, the company was privatized in the 1990s and split into several joint stock companies (including Iskra dd, Iskraemeco, Iskra Avtoelektrika and Iskratel ).