The packing line at the Bioresources Institute of Nigeria’s production center used to fall silent far too often. Machines that should have been churning out packets of herbal tea and supplements sat idle as technicians scrambled for spare parts or fixed quality glitches. But over the course of 2020, that frenetic scene began to change. “By the time we finished our lean overhaul, breakdowns were rare,” recalls Gbenga Ajenifuja, the maintenance engineer who led the transformation. Indeed, unplanned downtime plummeted by over a third, and product defects dwindled; a dramatic improvement in uptime and quality that has not gone unnoticed in Nigeria’s nascent nutraceutical industry.
Founded by researchers, the Bioresources Institute’s mission is to develop health products from Nigeria’s rich biodiversity. Its small factory on the outskirts of Abuja produces herbal teas among other items, blending science with traditional knowledge. Yet like many growing manufacturing outfits, it struggled with operations. When Ajenifuja joined as a Maintenance Engineer in early 2020, he found the shop floor constantly struggling with problems. “One packaging machine was always down for repairs. And if that one ran, the other would act up,” he says with a wry smile. The facility had two parallel packaging lines for tea bags, intended for redundancy, but lacked a systematic way to use them effectively. Meanwhile, inventory issues meant critical spare parts were often unavailable when trouble hit. All this resulted in frequent line stoppages and shipment delays.
Ajenifuja’s first step was to introduce lean manufacturing principles to a place more accustomed to ad-hoc fixes. “I remember we had a meeting where I drew two bins on the whiteboard and explained Kanban cards,” he says. The concept was simple: manage spare parts with a visual cue system so that replacements are ordered well before stock runs out. Previously, something like a sealing gasket might fail, and only then would the team rush to procure a new one, leaving the machine idle for days. Under the new Kanban system, each critical component got a reorder trigger point. As soon as a part’s inventory fell below a threshold, the purchasing team was alerted to restock. This ensured components were always available, reducing reactive maintenance delays. Over a few months, the impact was clear. “We went from sometimes waiting a week for parts to swapping them in hours,” Ajenifuja notes. According to the institute’s logs, machine downtime decreased by 35% after implementing Kanban-based spare parts tracking.
Equally important was how Ajenifuja tackled the redundancy of the two packaging lines. He coined a “hot standby” approach: when one teabag packaging machine was running, the other would not sit cold and inert. Instead, it was kept in a pre-warmed, low-energy standby mode – ready to take over at a moment’s notice. In practice, this meant calibrating the idle machine to mirror the active one’s settings and keeping its systems warm to avoid long start-up lags. If the primary machine had to be halted for maintenance or unexpected issues, the standby could kick in almost immediately. The result was a seamless switchover in case of a failure. “We essentially built a safety net,” he explains. “Previously, if one line went down, production stopped. Now the second line could pick up the slack within minutes.” This innovation required careful tuning – too much idle running would waste energy, too little and the backup wouldn’t be ready in time. But Ajenifuja struck the right balance, and the payoff was significant in maintaining steady production.
Beyond uptime, product quality was another sore spot. The institute’s flagship herbal tea had to meet standards for package sealing integrity and teabag weight uniformity, yet batches often had leaky pouches or inconsistent fill weights. Ajenifuja launched a meticulous recalibration effort. He experimented with seal-bar pressures and temperatures, aiming for the sweet spot that sealed each sachet firmly without scorching. Using precision instruments, he dialed the pressure to within ±0.02 bar and aligned the cutting blades to within ±0.5 mm. These numbers might seem small, but in the mass production of tiny 2-gram tea bags, they made a noticeable difference. After the adjustments, the seal integrity issues virtually disappeared.
The data spoke loudly: product defects dropped by about 20% following the calibration campaign. That translated to thousands more saleable tea bags each week and fewer customer complaints about torn or under-filled packets. With the packaging line running reliably and consistently, the institute was able to ramp up output to meet increasing demand. Notably, this all occurred amid the tumult of 2020’s global challenges. The team had to navigate COVID-19 restrictions, which at times meant fewer technicians on-site. Lean practices ironically helped in that regard too: with clearer processes and visual systems like Kanban, the staff could keep things moving even with skeletal crews. “The system almost managed itself once we set it up,” Ajenifuja reflects. Remote monitoring and WhatsApp groups replaced some in-person meetings as he guided junior technicians through maintenance routines from afar during lockdowns.
One of the most lasting changes at the Bioresources Institute has been cultural. Before, maintenance was a reactive, thankless department – noticed only when something broke. After Ajenifuja’s tenure (Feb 2020 to May 2021), the ethos shifted towards continuous improvement. The dramatic cut in downtime and defects proved what a proactive approach could achieve. Management took note when production numbers and product reviews improved. “It turned heads when we hit our monthly targets consistently,” Okeke says. The institute’s director even mentioned the improvements in a press briefing, crediting “operational excellence and lean maintenance” for the better performance.
Ajenifuja made sure to document everything in plain language: a new maintenance handbook detailed the Kanban system, the redundancy protocol, and the calibration settings, ensuring his efforts would be sustained. He also mentored a colleague to take over as maintenance lead when he left, emphasizing that lean is an ongoing journey, not a one-time project. “One of Gbenga’s big contributions was getting us all to see waste and inefficiency in our day-to-day work,” says Emmanuel Uzo, a technician who worked under Ajenifuja. “Now we’re always asking, how can we make this process smoother?” That mindset is the cornerstone of lean philosophy.
By mid-2021, the packaging facility at Bioresources Institute was a markedly different place from a year prior. Walking through it, one sees orderly racks of parts with Kanban cards, machines humming in tandem, a backup ready, and operators diligently checking gauges. A steady rhythm of production has replaced the frantic chaos of breakdowns. Of course, challenges remain – new products bring new technical tweaks, and machines can always fail in unexpected ways. But the team now has the tools and confidence to respond. “We can’t eliminate every problem, but we’ve learned how to adapt quickly and not let small issues spiral,” Uzo adds. In a broader sense, this small manufacturing outfit’s success story showcases the power of lean maintenance in emerging industries. With a blend of local ingenuity and proven techniques, they achieved results that would make even bigger factories proud. And every time a perfectly sealed tea bag rolls off the line, it quietly affirms that lesson.
