Arridex has formally commissioned its Omnifactory, West Africa’s first multi-technology industrial additive manufacturing facility.
At a ceremony in Lagos, the facility was commissioned by Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Governor of Lagos State, and attended by senior government officials, industry leaders, and members of the diplomatic corps and investment delegation attending the Invest Lagos 3.0 forum.
The Invest Lagos delegation included participants from the forum’s panel session on The Future of Technology and Innovation, at which Kayode Adeleke, Group Chief Executive Officer of Arridex, spoke to the role of technology and innovation in the industrialisation of Africa, drawing directly on Arridex’s operational experience across oil and gas, maritime, aerospace, defence, construction, and manufacturing.
The Arridex Omnifactory integrates multiple additive manufacturing technologies under a single roof, including Laser Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF), Cold Spray, Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF), and Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), enabling on-demand production of industrial components, spares, and improved part designs for critical industries. Its large-format capabilities extend to full-size marine components and other large-scale industrial structures.
The Omnifactory’s commissioning is the point at which two decades of accumulated capability become infrastructure. Arridex began operations in 2005 as an asset integrity practice in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector and grew sector by sector into maritime, defence, construction, technology, and aerospace. The organisation has recorded zero lost-time incidents across more than seven million man hours of operations.
For Nigeria and West Africa, the Arridex Omnifactory addresses a structural dependency that has long affected operational continuity across critical industries.
Asset owners managing ageing infrastructure have routinely contended with extended procurement lead times, supply chains spanning multiple jurisdictions, and the increasing obsolescence of legacy parts whose original manufacturers may no longer exist. The Omnifactory manufactures those components on demand in Lagos.
Arridex holds Pioneer Status in additive manufacturing, granted by the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC), it is the first company qualified by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) for additive manufacturing deployment in the oil and gas sector, and has a joint venture partnership with the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON) for the local production of military-grade additive manufactured components, a set of recognitions that collectively signal the institutional grounding of what the Omnifactory represents.
Arridex is also the first African member of the Additive Manufacturer Green Trade Association (AMGTA), and a Designated Strategic Partner of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council (CWEIC), with Kayode Adeleke serving on the CWEIC Global Advisory Council.
Today, I opened West Africa’s first multi-technology industrial additive manufacturing facility in Lagos. By producing industrial components and spare parts here in Lagos, Arridex is helping to reduce our dependence on imports, strengthening critical industries and supporting economic growth. I commend the Arridex team for their vision and commitment to building solutions that serve not only Nigeria but the wider African continent. Lagos will continue to support investments that create opportunities, grow local capacity and position our state as a hub for innovation and industry.
Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Governor of Lagos State
“We did not set out to build the biggest company, but a resilient one. For over two decades, we have chosen the harder path, and that is to make in Africa what others import, to meet global standards without exception, and to put purpose before profit. The Arridex Omnifactory is where that conviction becomes infrastructure. The name on the door is new, but the work behind it is not. We are not stopping here. By the first quarter of 2027, we will commission the Arridex Mega Omnifactory, which will stand among the largest single-site industrial additive manufacturing facilities in the world. The next chapter of global manufacturing can be written from Lagos. We are building it.”
Kayode Adeleke, group chief executive officer, Arridex said that with the Omnifactory now commissioned, Arridex advances into its next phase: a group whose capabilities, infrastructure, and ambition are pointed in the same direction.
