N.H. plant lights up the highways

No candy, these. What the workers here call “lollipops’’ dropping from production line to packing crate at a mechanized pace are light bulbs for turn signals that will shine yellow when lit from within.

Most vehicles on the road today use these fragile bubbles of luminescence, all made at Osram Sylvania’s Automotive Lighting Division in Hillsboro.

Greg Bibbo, Osram Sylvania’s marketing manager for automotive consumer products, gestured to one of the orange bulbs, which he called an “S8 wedge.’’

“Most common brake or turn signal in North America,’’ Bibbo said. “Three out of four cars on the road would have these in it. Definitely the car you follow or the one behind you.’’

And, as any of the roughly 600 workers here at the Hillsboro plant will tell you, there’s a lot more happening inside that sphere of glass than you think. Take the bulbs - which resemble large Christmas tree lights - coming off one assembly line. Ant-sized wire coils - made in-house - have been placed just so inside the glass envelope. They work in concert with a cocktail of gases, which are flash-frozen and trapped in the bulb when it is hit with a shot of liquid nitrogen, to illuminate a headlight.

“Before I came here, I got in my car and I hit the lights and I didn’t think too much about it,’’ said David M. Hulick, the company’s specialty solid state lighting marketing director. “And after you’ve been here, you realize there’s a lot of science going on.’’

Added Bibbo: “You think, ‘Eh, a light bulb is a light bulb.’ But I don’t know of any other industry that has such a wide array of technologies.’’

That science and technology help drivers see better on dark roadways, signal a lane change, or notify other vehicles of an impending stop. And Osram Sylvania - which competes with companies like Federal Mogul, General Electric, and Philips - sells many of the automotive light bulbs consumers buy when their blinkers or headlights go out.

“They are basically a retail aftermarket guy, and they are the big player there,’’ said Stephen Spivey, a senior automotive analyst for market research company Frost & Sullivan. “The key in this market is getting in the big stores like AutoZone. Osram is there. Advanced Autoparts - they’re in there. Pep Boys - they’re in there.’’

In fact, according to Osram Sylvania, more than 14,000 retail stores sell its automotive lighting products. It’s a competitive world, Spivey added.

“You’ve got five or six store chains selling the majority of [replacement automotive bulbs],’’ Spivey explained. “It’s a battle to get shelf space.’’

The Hillsboro plant didn’t always produce lights. The factory was built in 1954 to house the Contoocook Valley Box Co. and was bought two years later by the light company. There, it made semiconductors until 1970. About a year later, it switched to lights - mainly for telephone consoles, said Hulick, and eventually, for cars.

Today, Osram Sylvania’s automotive lighting division accounts for 16 percent of the company’s worldwide sales, or about $1 billion, according to company filings.

Osram Sylvania invented the wedge-shaped connection that allows automotive light bulbs to be popped in and out of their sockets - phasing out the customized bulbs that required an entire light casing to be replaced.

The stick-up, battery-powered, push-button light called the “DOT-it’’ was invented here in Hillsboro, too. They were meant to help drivers illuminate dark spots inside a car not reached by an overhead dome light.

“I’ll never forget, in the focus group, one guy said ‘You know, I’d like to put that in my tackle box when I go fishing.’ And I said, ‘Well that’s a stupid idea,’ ’’ recalled Hulick, laughing. The lights have now become mainly a household product, he added, and are used, for instance, to illuminate dim closets, and yes, tackle boxes.

Making light bulbs - whether to go inside a DOT-it or the 2010 Ford Mustang - is precision work. That’s why Osram Sylvania makes all the manufacturing equipment it uses at the plant.

“If you don’t put that filament in just the right place, it’s like having glasses on crooked,’’ Hulick explained.

On one line, a cloud of mist surrounds parts of the machinery as unfinished headlight bulbs slide through the production process, getting injected with a mixture of inert gases.

“We hit it [a bulb] with liquid nitrogen. It looks like something out of a witch’s brew,’’ said Bibbo, explaining how the gases are captured inside each bulb. “All of that gas becomes a pellet. While it’s a pellet, we’re melting and sealing the glass.’’

The bulb-making process is so sophisticated, workers at the plant say, that many have become a bit fanatical about their bulbs. Woe to the family member or friend they’re with in a mall parking lot, several workers joked, because they’re always bending down to check out light casings on different cars to see whether they can eyeball an Osram Sylvania bulb.

“We all do it,’’ said Sabrina Johnson, a general foreman. “You go to look at a new vehicle and the first thing you do is stare at the lamp assembly, and they look at you weird.’’

Erin Ailworth can be reached at eailworth@globe.com.