THE HUMAN BODY SEEN AS A MACHINE

It was 2005 when the brothers Alexandre and Xavier Cornes founded Umana, the only health centre of applied biomechanical research that is authorised by the Administration in all of Spain. This company in Vigo responds to a model based more in knowledge than in technology. “We generate knowledge with which we obtain our own technologies which we exclusively exploit,” Alexandre Alfonso Cornes, who is one of the partners of Umana, explained. Now, they work with mutual insurance companies of labour accidents, hospitals, and medical and rehabilitation centres.

THE COMPANY HEAD-QUARTERED IN VIGO

works of the study of the human body as if it was a machine, for that reason they combine biomechanical science, engineering, and health. “It is a mixture of medicine and mechanical engineering,” they described. Their analysis of patients does not always have to do with the rehabilitation of a medical problem; they also study the human body at the preventative level, a technique that is especially useful for application in work environments that involve risk.

With the assistance of entities such as Uniemprende, the Business-Concept Program (promoted by the three Galician Universities), the Ministry of Industry, the Galician Institute for Economic Promotion (IGAPE), and the Regional Ministry of Work, Umana was consolidated as a technologically-­based business initiative. The strategic values of the company include their human team which are highly qualified as well as their applied focus of their research in biomechanics which, according their promoters, signifies that all of their products pursue the improvement of the quality of life in any of the lines of activity that they develop.

The first of their lines of business is based on the medical diagnosis of locomotor or muscular­skeletal problems. Umana is developing a technology that consists of sensors that provide information about the body and the impact of injuries that affect patients. In the second place, they deal with the design and fabrication of technologies applied to elite athletes with the objective of carrying out studies of advanced sport optimisation.

In this sense, they have developed a new technology for the Orio Rowing Club (Basque Country) and the Spanish Federations of Rowing and Canoeing with which they can obtain data concerning the strength, the fatigue, or the integrated power of each one of the athletes, measures that no one heretofore had been able to register. From Umana’s work, the team of athletes was able to develop better techniques for competition such as analysing the condition of the team members. Thanks to the data obtained, the group’s competitive results improved significantly.

UMANA is wagering on the generation of a new technology every year that will convert into an exclusive service. This is our way of understanding innovation: unique technology created on the basis of our knowledge in order to o!er pioneering services. The key is not knowledge but the capacity to generate it". Alexandre Alfonso Cornes

IMPROVEMENTS ON THE JOB

The third line of the company’s activities are centred in the protection of health on the job. For that, the Umana team go to the centres of work that require their services with the objective of studying how each worker performs during his or her work period. The company use sensors to analyse the activities and calculates the percentage of injuries that can be associated with the work performed, both in the short term as well as in the long term, with special attention given to the risk of muscular-­skeletal lesions that are the most frequent in the work environment.

Umana also elaborate sector studies concerning health problems. Until now, they have offered their knowledge to the automotive, naval, metal, food conservation, and the agricultural and livestock sectors. Thanks to the sensors attached to the workers, they can determine the correlation between work performed and the injuries suffered by patients; they detect the exact point of the task when the risk occurs and, from there, they make a proposal regarding the redesign of the job post that will improve the work health of the labourer. The positive impact of these corrective measures is shown by the data that reveal that the muscular-skeletal problems originated on the job suppose an annual loss of 2% of the European PIB.

Moreover, the company develop ergo-design projects that consist of the improvements of products based on their biomechanical analysis. Until now, they have worked with mattresses, seats or chairs, footwear for the health sector, and wheelchairs, trying to make them more comfortable and more healthy. The agreement with the company Asientos Esteban in Navarre permitted them to perfect a seat for buses which is an optimised product that Umana received as a prefabricated product and then improved until they achieved a more comfortable and healthy model for the user.

The wager for innovation leads Umana to embark on a project of this type every year. “We generate one new technology each year that is converted into a new and exclusive service. It is our innovation: unique technology that offers a service that no one else has developed,” explained Alexandre Alfonso Cornes.

Since the company initiated its activity, the company have grown 500%, an advance that they attribute to the fact of having selected a business model based on implicating themselves in the technology that they create and not selling it to a third party for exploitation. The team are composed of seven persons: two mechanical engineers with research specialities in biomechanics, one industrial engineer specialised in design, and one telecommunications engineer.

Thanks to assistance from the Regional Government of Galicia, the company have developed a research project in collaboration with the Department of Education and Sport Sciences of the University of Vigo (the Pontevedra Campus) dedicated to the development of a technology to determine the technical comfort of work clothes and footwear. The total cost of the project was more than 153,000 Euros, of which the Regional Government of Galicia contributed one third. The number of R&D&I projects carried out since 2006 is 19, with a total cost of 675,000 Euros. For four of them, the company had the financial support of the Regional Government of Galicia via the Regional Ministry of Economy and Industry.

The company recognises that innovation was a determining factor in its growth. Due to that factor, they dedicate 45% of the business volume to this concept. Until the present moment, they have achieved two patents: one for a chair with wheels and another for a hospital cart that is an improvement over the dimensions and weight of the conventional products with the objective that these articles are more manageable.