Surveying firm from Bolsward: success is something you make together

Brandsma Digital Measuring has experienced tremendous growth in recent years. Since this summer, the company has moved into a state-of-the-art commercial building in a high-profile location on the A7. "Besides paying attention to our customers and adapting the latest techniques, we also very consciously put a lot of energy into the well-being of our employees." Speaking is Rein Brandsma, founder and owner of Brandsma Digitaal Meten. "Because," he says, "success is something you make together."

Over the years Brandsma Digitaal Meten (BDM) has grown into a renowned player in the sector, which many small and large infrastructure contractors gratefully use. "Thanks to our state-of-the-art measuring equipment and highly motivated employees, we continue where others stop," Brandsma now knows from experience. "We can use static measuring instruments or drones to measure civil engineering structures in the infrastructure sector to within 2 millimeters, but we can also use the same drones to measure the health of crops (vegetation) or analyze the status of individual PV panels in a solar farm, for example. Our technology is very widely applicable and we take the best practices across all sectors."

Attention to employee well-being

Due to the steady growth of the company, Brandsma has made the necessary organizational changes. "For example, I have appointed a company manager in the person of Bastiaan Witteveen, who has been with us for ten years and has gone through almost all facets of our organization during his career. Handing over the day-to-day management to him has given me more room to make acquisitions and, above all, to give more attention to existing employees and the hiring of new ones. For example, a gym has been set up in our new building for employees to use and we are working on a vitality plan. Finding, training and retaining the right people is what we are currently focusing on. And we show that we are serious by offering new employees a permanent contract immediately after a six-month trial period. The work is there. We are involved in the most wonderful projects, which often just "blow over". A sign that we are all doing well together."

Some high-profile projects to which BDM is contributing are the Floriade in Almere and an extensive housing project by Van Wijnen. "At the Floriade, we are responsible for the complete dimensioning, ranging from the physical plotting of the cunettes and sewers to the preparation and continuous updating of the 'as built' file," Brandsma explains. "In doing so, we use the latest techniques such as Augmented Reality for clash detection. With the same innovative approach, we are contributing to Van Wijnen's housing project that will build 4,000 homes in its own factory in Heerenveen. All those homes must be plotted efficiently on location. They leave that to us. It is precisely this variety of projects and clients, from small to large, that makes our work incredibly dynamic and just plain fun."

Finding staff is the main challenge. "You understand that we have plenty of room for new talent. Interested parties are welcome immediately," Brandsma concluded.