Manufacturing & supply chain

Move up the ladder only when the step below is stable

Hardware companies fail on supply, quality and cash more often than on ideas. That is the blueprint's own framing, and it is why this page is a ladder with gates rather than a factory tour: Ifenri buys today, has assembled nothing, and runs no production line.

Today: Buy — and nothing above it

Ifenri runs no production line and has assembled no unit. The ladder below is the plan for reaching one, one stable rung at a time.

The ladder

Five stages, each with a gate

Every stage below has a pass condition. The next stage does not begin until the gate under it is cleared — which is why the years overlap, and why none of them are dates we can promise.

Move up this ladder only when the step below is stable. A stage is not “in progress because we started it” — it is passed when its gate is true and can be shown. Skipping a rung is how a hardware company ends up with a production line and no failure log.

Buy

Years 0 to 2

Buy

Years 0 to 2Where we are

Use commercial drones and machines; learn what fails

Gate to move up: Failure log and spare-parts list exist

Clear the gate, then up

Modify

Years 1 to 3

Modify

Years 1 to 3

Add sensors, kits and fixes to bought machines

Gate to move up: Repeatable modifications that improve uptime or cost

Clear the gate, then up

Assemble

Years 2 to 4

Assemble

Years 2 to 4

Assemble your own designs from sourced parts in a workshop

Gate to move up: Tested design, test checklist, 5 to 20 units in service

Clear the gate, then up

Co-manufacture

Years 3 to 6

Co-manufacture

Years 3 to 6

Work with a local fabricator or contract manufacturer on frames, enclosures, harnesses

Gate to move up: Stable design, supplier quality agreements

Clear the gate, then up

Manufacture

Years 5 to 10

Manufacture

Years 5 to 10

Run your own production line for core machines

Gate to move up: Demand, capital, quality system, trained workforce

Stage 5 is the end of this ladder, not a promise about the company: the blueprint’s gate for it is demand, capital, a quality system and a trained workforce, none of which exist today.

Sourcing & supply chain

What gets bought, what gets made here, and what has to clear customs

These are the rules the plan commits to before it buys anything. They are rules in force on paper, not practices in operation.

Made or bought locally

Frames
Enclosures
Harnesses
Battery packaging

Frames, enclosures, harnesses and battery packaging are the parts a local fabricator can make, which is also what makes stage 4 — co-manufacture — reachable without a factory.

Imported

Motors
Controllers
Sensors
Cells

Motors, controllers, sensors and cells have no local substitute today. That dependency is the reason the caution below is carried prominently rather than buried.

Confirm

Plan for import duties, foreign-exchange swings, shipping delays and customs; confirm current rules with a customs agent.

Two suppliers per critical part

Keep a bill of materials per product with at least two suppliers for every critical part.

Know what can be local

Identify which parts can be made or bought locally — frames, enclosures, harnesses, battery packaging — and which must be imported: motors, controllers, sensors, cells.

Stock spares per cluster

Stock critical spares in each field cluster, so a repair does not wait on a shipment.

Track failures by part

Track failures by part, so the failure record guides the redesign instead of only the repair.

Protect the designs

Company-owned intellectual property, version-controlled files, and written agreements with suppliers and contractors.

A simple quality process, early

Incoming inspection, assembly checklist, final test, traceable serial numbers. This becomes the base for the food-safety and quality system processing will later need.

Robot economics

Metrics to instrument, not results

Nothing on this list has been measured, because there is no robot in service to measure. They are published now so the first machine is designed to produce them — a metric named after the build is a metric you cannot reconstruct.

Not yet measured

Bill-of-materials cost per unit

What one robot costs in parts, before labour and overhead.

₦ per unit

Not yet measured

Bill-of-materials cost per hectare-year of service

The same parts cost spread over the hectares a machine actually serves in a year — the number a per-hectare price has to beat.

₦ per hectare-year

Not yet measured

Uptime

Share of scheduled service hours the machine is able to work.

Not yet measured

Mean time between failures

How long it runs, on average, between breakdowns.

hours

Not yet measured

Repair time

How long a repair takes with local parts and a local technician — the figure that decides whether spares stock is adequate.

hours

Not yet measured

Operator hours per robot hour

How much human attention each robot hour needs, including supervision and recovery.

ratio

Not yet measured

Cost to serve per cluster

Transport, spares and technician time, per cluster.

₦ per cluster

Starting budget

Planning ranges, and how to read them

These are the blueprint's planning ranges for getting to a first field season. They are not quotes and not a price list, and the caution on the page is the blueprint's own.

Confirm — these are planning ranges, not quotes

Ranges come from the blueprint's earlier research notes and are not quotes. Get at least three current quotes for every line. Research and development lines have no ranges because they depend on the design; quote them after the first prototyping step.

Ifenri starting budget planning ranges, and what still has to be quoted
Item	Planning range
CAC incorporation and compliance	₦60,000 to ₦150,000
Laptop and software tools	₦1.5m to ₦4m
Small mapping drone	₦1m to ₦5m
Agricultural spraying drone	₦8m to ₦30m+
Batteries, spares, charger	₦2m to ₦8m
Pilot training and certification	₦500,000 to ₦3m
Field operations, 6 months	₦3m to ₦15m
Working capital	₦3m to ₦10m
Vehicle, insurance	Varies; get quotes
Drying, storage and processing equipment, later	Get quotes after the Stage 2 pilot design
Robotics workshop, tools, test equipment	Get quotes after Step B2
Rover R1 parts and prototyping	Get quotes after Step B1
Engineer salary or stipend	Get market quotes

Five lines carry no number on purpose, and the last three name the step they can be quoted after. R&D and design costs depend on a machine that does not exist yet, so the honest entry is the step after which it can be quoted — not a figure invented to fill a table.

Start the conversation

Make food secure and farming profitable — at the same time

Tell us your crop, your hectares and where you lose money today. We will tell you honestly whether Ifenri can improve that hectare yet — and if we cannot, we will say so.

Farmers & cooperatives

Book mapping, scouting or machinery for your cluster. Pilots are paid and measured from the first hectare.

Book a field service

Buyers & processors

Talk to us about reliable, traceable supply and where the loss actually happens in your crop.

Discuss supply

Funders & partners

Read the working plan, the gates, and the unit economics before you commit a naira.

Investor brief