Creating an engineering firm that supports a product from initial concept to manufacturing requires clients, people, and production capacity – none of which exist from day one. i-mas was founded in 2005 with four engineering partners, without external investors, and with €50,000 in revenue in its first year. In Chapter 57 of Toque de Ingenio, Jaume Álvarez and the other partners explain the decisions that led to reaching the 20-year mark: a dedicated workshop, spin-offs like Proto&Go! and Fabriqer, and separate business units with independent accounting, alongside a crisis that forced diversification.
Guest: Jaume Álvarez, introduced in the episode as the production director at i-mas, accompanied by partners Óscar Serrano, Quim Alcàntara, and Miguel Ángel Muñoz. Interview published: July 2, 2025. Episode: 57. Duration: 1 h 41 min.
In this episode:
- Why offering the complete service, from the initial idea to the market, was the initial strategy, and what it cost to maintain it.
- What the 2010 crisis taught us about non-performing loans, banks, and the risks associated with relying on a single client.
- How a company’s in-house machining workshop led to two spin-offs and a new way of managing the business.
Recorded in mid-2025 to mark the twentieth anniversary, the conversation brings together all five partners. Edgar Guerrero hosts it as one of them, which is why this article talks about i-mas in the first person.
Creating an engineering firm without business experience.
The four founders worked together at a tech center where they developed the idea over approximately a year. At that time, many companies offered a “turnkey” service, but in reality, each one covered only a part: market research, design, manufacturing, or assembly. With each change in suppliers, information and the value of the product were lost.
The challenge was to consolidate all stages of the process into a single company – from benchmarking and specifications through to the finished product or the automated line – within a single entity. Óscar Serrano, now CEO, describes it as the most difficult project we’ve ever undertaken: the four of them were engineers or designers, with no background in economics or management experience, and someone had to handle the banking, investments, and finances.
The records date back to the end of 2004, and work began in January 2005, in a premises that the partners themselves renovated and prepared during the Christmas holidays, with a butane heater. In the first year, we generated €50,000; in the second, €300,000. The initial biggest concern was securing clients, and one of the first strategies was to offer free studies on the amortization of machinery.
Initial projects and a spin-off that didn’t manage to sell.
The initial commission was for a product redesign: a new mop for the inventor’s group, followed by the first machine to assemble it. That client has remained with us twenty years later.
Jaume Álvarez joined the company through a different route: he was the project manager for a client. When he left that company, an opportunity arose to develop a mobile robot, and with it, the first spin-off, Tecnorobot. Jaume explains that the robotic security system was designed to disable explosives, and they developed a robot intended to control disturbances without putting officers at risk.
The entire team cost €35,000, and included non-lethal weaponry. It was the first to feature a polymer chassis capable of withstanding impacts. It was presented at the Milipol Paris exhibition, but a sale with the administration was never finalized. The partners described it as an example of how a good idea, when properly developed, doesn’t always guarantee success.
Surviving the crisis: unpaid debts, banks, and a single client.
The 2008 crisis hit i-mas in 2010, and according to Óscar, it was like going from full operation to complete shutdown. The administration delayed payments for months or even years, banks closed their doors, and regular clients simply vanished, leaving hundreds of thousands of euros unpaid.
The partners acknowledge their own share of the problem. They had partnered with a multinational in the medical devices sector, and, without realizing it, 80% of their revenue depended on a single company, while commercial activity had been neglected.
The project took approximately two to three years to complete and resulted in new clients, not existing ones. A portion of the work during that period was carried out in collaboration with technology centers in Andalusia, which led to two patents in the field of machine vision, utilizing neural networks for classifying natural products, in 2009.
From that arises a rule that we consistently apply: to work in different sectors and not to rely on one or two major clients. Miguel Ángel Muñoz adds another lesson: not to get involved in managing a business in a sector you don’t understand.
Creating a single piece: why we set up our own machining workshop.
Industry is good at manufacturing quantities of a thousand units or more, but an engineering company needs one-off shafts, gears and sheet-metal parts for prototypes and machines. The partners recall workshops asking for 15 days to make a single part. Relying on third-party laser cutting, bending or machining delayed equipment deliveries.
During the crisis, we rented machine time from external workshops and went ourselves to operate the machines. A workshop that was about to discard a milling machine gave it to us in exchange for transport, and with it, we began to have our own production capacity. Today, Jaume manages that. machining workshop As production director.
“It’s very difficult to produce individual pieces and small series”.
Jaume Álvarez 41:55.
Their response was to automate the entire system, not just the machines – encompassing the programming, the ordering of materials, and the monitoring of each component’s status. For example, they aimed to standardize the materials’ fasteners in various sizes to improve efficiency.
When the workshop started generating unused hours, we decided to sell them online. That’s how Proto&Go! was born, around 2015 or 2016 – an online brand of prototyping With CNC machining, 3D printing, and tooling using prototype molds. Behind the website, we had to develop a custom software – essentially an industrial ERP – to manage offers, deadlines, and traceability.
Segmenting the company into business units.
Initially, as Miguel Ángel describes, the company was simply a single entity: money flowed in and out without a clear understanding of where it was coming from. Separating i-mas into units with their own accounting significantly changed this situation. Each department, including marketing, now bills its services to the rest of the company, and the workshop transitioned from a purely structural expense to a business that also generates revenue through sales.
One of the partners refers to this as the “pie theory”: a large problem is broken down into smaller, manageable pieces that can be analyzed individually. Over time, this segmentation has gone even further: Proto&Go! by country, the collaboration between manufacturing and assembly, and engineering between machine vision and robotics.
That internal billing process had an unexpected effect. Jaume, who was responsible for the workshop, had to quote each piece to the other departments, based on drawings, weight calculations, and handwritten time estimates. The tool developed to address this is the foundation of Fabriqer, a spin-off that was in the launch phase when the episode was recorded.
Fabriqer groups the pieces by material and finish, calculates the material cost based on the price per kilo, allows for the addition of phases with an hourly rate and treatments, and generates the quote in PDF format. Jaume explains that he can prepare 200 quotes in just a couple of hours after spending an entire day creating them.
“I’m finally starting to get my life together. Because I now have a lot of time to do what I need to do”.
Jaume Álvarez 54:13.
Realistic timelines and a forward-looking perspective beyond what is immediately apparent.
Edgar raises a common issue among the podcast guests: someone signs a contract with an agency promising a product within three months, but it takes two years to materialize. The partners agree that a product requiring moulds, CE marking, and compliance with regulations typically takes between one and a half and two years. We currently prefer to let go of anyone who can’t accept that timeframe – and several people who had previously left have returned.
One of the partners believes that the most dangerous client isn’t the one who presents the most challenging task, but the one who doesn’t understand what their project entails. Therefore, it’s advisable to carefully screen clients at the outset.
At the time of the interview, the area of Automation and machine vision I was working on various sorting projects, involving the selection and classification of natural or food products. Miguel Ángel explains that they have incorporated X-ray technology into their machine vision system, not just to detect foreign bodies, but also to interpret images and classify using artificial intelligence.
The target for 2025 was a workforce of approximately 100 employees, with 75-80% holding university degrees, and a budget of around €10 million. Looking ahead 20 years, the stated ambition is to become the leading entity in Europe that we currently are in Spain. Quim Alcàntara points out that his department is already operating in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, and France.
What can another development team learn?
i-mas’ story offers four key lessons for anyone building a technical company:
- Do not rely on a single client. An 80% of revenue concentrated in a single account transforms any external decision into a personal crisis.
- To acquire the ability to manufacture a single unit. Loose pieces and short series dictate the rhythm of prototypes and machines.
- Measure each area separately. Independent accounting and internal billing reveal where profits are made and where losses occur.
- To consider the timelines from the outset. A client who understands the project is worth more than one who demands a three-month timeframe.
Proto&Go! continues to operate as a platform for the manufacturing of parts and prototypes in protoandgo.com and sponsor the podcast. Fabriqer could be tried for free in fabriqer.com At the time of the interview, and as the team was requesting feedback from the workshops.
Twenty years on, we continue to do what we established in 2005: to support a product or process from the initial concept through to manufacturing, encompassing design, electronics, workshop and automation, all under one roof. If you’d like to know what realistic timelines and steps are involved in your project, Tell us about your project..
To continue reading: How Rieju continues to manufacture motorcycles in Figueres..
Source of article: Interview with Edgar Guerrero, featuring Jaume Álvarez, Óscar Serrano, Quim Alcàntara, and Miguel Ángel Muñoz on Toque de Ingenio. The excerpts cited link to the relevant minute of the conversation. The recommendations for other projects are a summarised editorial from i-mas.
