tjecco is digitising building safety from its own premises at Kennispark

This frustration led Clemens to set up tjecco, building safety solutions. Together with a team of experts, a digital building safety platform has been developed to collate, manage and monitor the paperwork required to comply with legislation, all within a single app. Housing associations, property owners, hospitals, care homes, as well as swimming pools and industrial sites, now have insight into which safety tasks need to be carried out and when, anytime and anywhere. It is no longer possible to forget anything, and what’s more, nobody needs to keep track of legislative changes anymore. tjecco does that for all its clients. As a property owner and occupier at Kennispark, tjecco makes building management easy and straightforward.

Smart sensors automate safety checks and prevent Legionella

One of the most ambitious developments involves turning ‘dumb’ taps – which do not use a battery – into smart ones, or sensors that last for fifteen years once installed. These are sustainable solutions that prevent the wastage of water, gas, electricity or labour, whilst enhancing safety and operational reliability.

A sensor as flat and as large as a euro coin is used to automatically measure and record water or room temperatures. Installation is child’s play. You plug the receiver into the mains socket, tap the sensor (the sensor is selected automatically) and specify what needs to be measured. After that, for the next fifteen years, you won’t need to spend any more man-hours on statutory checks for Legionella prevention or on measuring cooling or freezing temperatures.

The prototype of the ‘SmartWaterTap’, which can turn any ordinary tap into a smart one, will need to be developed into a production-ready product over the coming years. The SmartWaterTap ensures that hospitals and care homes, as well as hotels, do not flush taps and showers unnecessarily for the sake of legionella safety. This means that hot water (gas and electricity), safe drinking water and labour are no longer wasted down the drain. The SmartWaterTap is low-maintenance. Batteries do not need replacing, as the device generates its own energy to send data to the tjeccloud. A flashing LED alerts the user on the spot when the tap has not been used for too long, thereby preventing the need for someone to make a special visit, for example.

tjeccoffice for spontaneous get-togethers

The new office near the Colosseum is more than just a workplace; it is a ‘tjeccoffice’ that reflects the company’s inclusive and team-oriented culture. It will be a meeting place for everyone in and around the ‘tjeccoffice’, complete with the ‘tjeccafé’. An environment that radiates passion and experience, and where people want to be. This way of thinking beyond one’s own plot and one’s own company ties in well with our ‘Area Strategy 2026–2035’. It contributes to the ambition that the spatial design of our innovation campus should encourage interaction and make the area attractive and recognisable.

A magnet for talent

Despite the lure of larger tech hubs, such as Eindhoven or the Randstad, Clemens’s heart lies in Twente. After a brief stint in Amsterdam, Clemens resolved never again to have a commute of more than an hour between his home and workplace, and that Twente is and will remain his home. Clemens: “The move to Kennispark has only reinforced my choice of Twente, and Enschede in particular. Since we moved to Kennispark, our recruitment problems have disappeared. Our approach to student mentoring, the drive to perform, but also the freedom to make mistakes and, above all, to have a lot of fun at Kennispark in our cool office, acts as a magnet for talent from ROC van Twente, Saxion (from both Enschede and Deventer) and the University of Twente. They are now so familiar with how students develop at tjecco that they actively refer students to us. This quality of support was also recognised when we recently won the title of ‘Best Training Company in the Engineering Sector’.”

A culture of safety and inclusivity

“At tjecco, the team, working as a team and personal growth are central. It doesn’t matter whether you’re green, yellow, purple or whatever – as long as you’re passionate about our profession, willing to learn new things every day and adapt to what the team needs. You learn these things through extra training, just like footballers who stay on the training pitch for half an hour longer to improve their game. Every employee has their own position in the team, and if someone ‘leaves the pitch’ halfway through the match, the whole team suffers as a result. Every team member is aware of this, and in this way they demonstrate ‘ownership’. It also builds trust and ensures that everyone has their place in the team whilst remaining true to themselves.”

“Having fun together is a big part of our performance. Just having a bit of a laugh. For example, we now have the ‘Tjeccoploper’ cup, which goes to whoever is top of the World Cup group. Someone thought it would be fun to blast ‘We Are the Champions’ through our office and make a right fuss of presenting the cup whenever there’s a new leader. Everyone looks around, wondering what on earth is going on, and the result is a big smile. With renewed energy, everyone gets back to work – and of course, mistakes and blunders are made along the way. We don’t penalise that; instead, we turn it into a bit of a party too! Our party pot (the ‘Tjecpot’) gets filled up bit by bit. We use the tjecpot to fund our parties and activities, including, most recently, a long weekend in Marbella or a race at Zandvoort.”