
"It is important that our firefighting colleagues are provided with the safest possible equipment."
In order to manage all the fire equipment of the 14 municipalities of the Twente Safety Region, the Twente Fire Department uses Centix. Maintenance & Technology Coordinator Tom Steentjes explains the quality improvements they have made with Centix: “We work with Centix to ensure that our colleagues can work safely.”
The Maintenance & Technology team of the Twente Fire Department is responsible for the procurement, inspection, assembly, maintenance, repair and disposal of all vehicles and equipment for the 29 fire stations of the Twente Fire Department. In addition, the team also inspects and maintains the materials of the training center; the Twente Safety Campus (TSC). The team has approximately 8,000 objects to maintain and inspect. These are the vehicles and equipment used by the fire department at incidents. The team works on this every day in its own workshops at three fire stations in Enschede, Hengelo and Almelo. Tom: “The biggest advantage for us is that with Centix we can now go through our inspection and maintenance work completely digitally. It is important that our firefighting colleagues from other emergency response regions are provided with equipment that is as safe and reliable as possible, so that they can fight incidents in Twente in a professional and decisive manner.”
Situation before Centix: Inspection on paper
Since 2013, the fire department in Twente has been regionalized. As of that year, this merged the 14 municipalities into one safety region. As a result, in 2023 the Twente Fire Department will have been in existence for 10 years. In order to properly manage all the equipment of the fire department from these 14 municipalities, an asset management system was already purchased in the past. This system was used until July 2021. All materials were in this system and were provided with “tags. Tom Steentjes explains, “Until recently, we still did our inspections on paper. From 2021 we decided to take a close look at our materials management and implement various quality improvements where possible. For example, we set to work on creating unity in the equipment of the Twente Fire Department. This resulted in similar vehicles with the same equipment. This has advantages for purchasing, but also maintaining and managing the materials. The same applies to the training and continuing competence of our colleagues. Purchasing and implementing Centix was one of the quality strokes.”






Centix solution: easy to analyze
Fire Department Twente chose to deploy Centix Online in order to go through the inspection and maintenance activities completely digitally. This allows the Fire Department to build up a good inspection and maintenance history of the materials. “We also recorded the history in our previous system as well,” says Tom. “By inspecting on paper, it was not easy to analyze. With Centix, it is easier to analyze the desired information faster. This together with the easy reading of the NEN 3140 inspections with the PAT tester saves us a lot of time.” To be able to see the desired information immediately when inspecting and maintaining equipment, the Twente Fire Department uses Centix’s QR code stickers. “An advantage of this is that you can easily scan these with your smartphone or tablet. This gives us instant access to the data and we no longer need special reading equipment for this,” Tom said. Work at the workshops is carried out in Centix’s supplementary planning module. The planning module allows the Fire Department to get a better grip on the workflow and work to be scheduled.
Benefits/Results with Centix: in Control
- Because the inspection and maintenance operations at the Twente Fire Department have been fully digitized, the fire department:
+ better understanding (by using colors in Centix) whether inspection deadlines will expire in the near future.
+ A good inspection-maintenance history of the materials.
+ the ability to analyze the desired information more quickly and easily. - Digital inspection, makes working much easier, because:
+ inspections can be done more easily on the smartphone or tablet instead of on paper.
+ reading the NEN 3140 inspections with the PAT tester saves the Fire Department a lot of time. - By deploying Centix’s QR code stickers, the fire department could largely say goodbye to expensive reading equipment and special “tags”. The QR codes:
+ are easily scanned with the smartphone or tablet, providing instant access to the required data. - The planning module (as an addition to Centix Online) allows the Fire Department to realize a central planning, in which the activities of the various workshops can be seen. Tom: “This gives us a total overview for the team in terms of activities. An additional advantage is that this helps the Fire Department with workload management (how much work in what time frame).”
Because of this the Fire Department:
+ has insight into the schedule and they know which vehicles are scheduled for which period in the workshop for bumper-to-bumper inspection.
+ is in control. There is a better overview of open work orders per vehicle and work yet to be scheduled.



