Mouka Limited in Nigeria raises employee safety

Due to the highly flammable nature of foam and polyurethane materials, fire safety at manufacturing facilities is a prime concern.

Headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria, manufacturing company Mouka Limited has built a leading position on the country’s household and industrial markets since its founding in 1959. With 800 employees and production facilities in Lagos, Benin and Kaduna, Mouka is now Nigeria’s foremost supplier of branded mattresses and foam-based products for sleep solutions. Products such as foam blocks, beddings and duvets, and polyurethane blocks are widely available throughout retail and wholesale channels in Nigeria.

Due to the highly flammable nature of foam and polyurethane materials, fire safety at manufacturing facilities is a prime concern. But when Mouka Limited decided to install a solution that could detect fire and smoke in less than 30 seconds – before fire can spread and potentially harm employees – the market had nothing to offer. The reason: Common point-type detectors rely on detecting smoke particles in the air, which can take several minutes to rise – especially when detectors are mounted on high warehouse ceilings.

Fortunately, Bosch offers an innovative product sensitive enough: Aviotec video-based fire detection relies on spotting smoke and fire via light signals that travel much faster than smoke particles. Software inside each device analyzes video images of large areas such as warehouses via custom algorithms, programmed to sound alarms for color changes and visual patterns associated with fires. The VdS-certified Aviotec solution was much closer to the insurance’s requirements than any other system in the whole market and pinpoint the fire’s exact location when connected to IP-based fire safety solutions such as the Modular Fire Panel 5000 Series from Bosch.

Working closely with the team at the three Mouka Limited factories in Lagos, Benin and Kaduna, Bosch installed an innovative fire protection solution featuring video-based fire detection. Tested extensively before deployment, the solution includes 34 Aviotec devices for video-based fire detection connected to Bosch addressable Fire Panel 1200 Series, alarm sounders, and strobes, as well as a third-party sprinkler system.

With its ability to detect flame and smoke in a very early stage, the Bosch video-based fire detection system has already proven an asset at all three facilities: First, it significantly raises the safety of hundreds of employees at Mouka Limited factories. Second, it shortens alarm response times and thereby minimizes the risk of potential damage to equipment and product inventories. And third, analysis of video images of a fire allows for root cause analysis after an incident.

In the bigger picture, the fact that the system offers fire detection at industry-leading speeds has been appreciated by the insurance provider responsible for setting the insurance premium for Mouka Limited’s facilities. Meanwhile, word about the new state of the art in rapid fire detection at industrial manufacturing sites is spreading throughout Nigeria – and beyond.