Commercialising Indigenous Research Products for Industrialisation

Science and technology is not rocket science. Till date, many nations are yet to join the rocket science league, but they have viable economies and enjoy the proceeds of developed local industries.

Our forebears could produce diverse products to meet their needs. From the yields of the fields, they made a variety of foods. Many do not realise that foods like fufu, pap (ogi, akamu, eko, fura) are products of industrial processes. They forged iron to make their tools and sometimes developed alloys of metals, produced jewellery, cosmetics, and so on.

The difference between traditional technologies and modern processes is the inclusion of science. Science is intentional, not arbitrary or spontaneous. It involves research that would study, develop, through several trials to arrive at a proof and documentation of the best possible approach at the time for production and or delivery of particular goods and services; based on contemporary and sometimes anticipated needs.

In the case of our well-known pap, for example, our local people have mastered the art of fermentation, sieving, draining and even drying of the ingredients, which could be maize, guinea corn, millet, and so on. In some cases, the grains are blended at various stages of fermentation, depending on their individual strengths, while spices like ginger, tumeric, black pepper could be added for flavour. Now this is technology, but not yet science.

Today, research bodies across the country, in tune with modern trends, have developed scientific procedures for the processing of local grains. Through their efforts, we now have large quantities of packaged cereals and other products that are consistent in quality. This is possible because production methods are documented and so can be reproduced to give the same quality at all times as long as the specified ingredients and production conditions and processes remain constant.

The products are also improved versions of the traditional products in terms of variety, hygiene, nutrition, taste and shelf life. In addition, scientific understanding and manipulation of the composition of the components and their reaction under different chemical processes now make it possible to reduce duration of production time. For instance, pap that could take two to four days to produce is now manufactured within hours. Examples are some weaning and breakfast cereals for older children and adults, custard powders circulating under different brand names today.

Machines have also replaced the use of many manual processes like sorting, washing, pounding/grinding, sieving and drying. Recently, some industries are beginning to deploy automation; further reducing the need for human drudgery, error and making large-scale production possible and easier.

These mechanised processes started on laboratory tables, utilising tabletop equipment to produce in small quantities. During the laboratory work, samples are produced and tested for safety. Trial runs are periodically conducted under diverse conditions with content measurement variations to arrive at the best processing procedures that will be adopted. There are also field tests that will involve sampling the opinion of prospective consumers. Some of these activities are conducted with the help of experts across various lines of discipline.

After the laboratory, safety and marketplace tests are successfully concluded, the investigating scientists can confidently announce to the public that they have developed a breakthrough technology in that area.

At this point, the scientist’s job is done and the next steps are left to the investing public. He may continue to investigate how to improve on work done and would probably continue, depending on his passion and public response, to research on improved methods until he disengages from active researching.

The reason that scientific breakthroughs are introduced to the public is to enable commercialisation. Commercialisation involves the large scale outputting of laboratory-generated products, which are necessarily in small quantities, using industrial processes.

In the ideal situation, the researcher may solicit funds to build a demonstration or pilot plant of the industrial process to serve as proof of feasibility to prospective entrepreneurs. It is also conventional for a scientist or group of scientists to patent their innovation so that investors, who wish to adopt the technology, will pay the license to reproduce the technology.

Patenting provides a reward system through which scientists and other originators of ideas or procedures can reap dividends from the periods of exertion and sometimes seclusion, which may be quite prolonged in some instances, which they passed through in pursuit of their projects.

These are some of the activities that our engineers and scientists ensconced in various laboratories – be they research institutes, science and engineering departments of manufacturing concerns, military units, universities and colleges of technology, continually engage in that are in dire need of exposure to the investing public.

Unfortunately, very little is heard of their works and their breakthroughs. Only entrepreneurs and the investing public annually adopt a very little percentage. It is therefore important that efforts be made by entrepreneurs to visit these areas of ideas-cache across the country to seek research breakthroughs that are ready for commercialisation.

The new Executive Order 5, which demands that local science and engineering capacity be utilised for Nigeria’s industrialisation, is apt and should be exploited to groom a new crop of science entrepreneurs in Nigeria who can manufacture products that can compete with and eventually replace the imported items that do so much harm to our local currency.

Source:PUNCH.