05/04/2017
Kris Nijs has been involved in the road marking industry ever since he finished his studies. He started his career right after school as a technical drawer at a company supplying street furniture and road marking machines. This gave him an in depth understanding of the industry and what makes a high quality road marking machine.
“We had one of the first Borum machines in Belgium”
This is also where Kris had his first contact with a Borum machine, which was among the first ones to get sold in Belgium. But it was only the beginning of a long-term relationship with Borum. as he soon took a new role at one of the largest construction companies in Belgium where he continued working with Borum machines.
‘99 marked the beginning of Nijs BVBA
Kris’ past experience was a stepping stone in knowing the do’s and dont’s of the industry, choosing the right equipment, but also learning how to handle maintenance and developments. Therefore, in 1999 Kris Nijs decided to start his own business, Nijs BVBA, within road marking and maintenance and it is still going strong.
Nijs BVBA is working all over Belgium and within a small area of the Netherlands. The company does road marking on all types of surfaces from cities, highways to occasionally airports. Just in the past year Nijs BVBA has used around 400 tons of thermoplastic, which is also due to major government projects they are involved in.
“I have known Borum for almost 25 years …”
His past experience with Borum machines led Nijs to purchasing various Borum line marking equipment and machines for his own business. The most recent machine is a Borum Master 2000 supplied in 2016 with the Dot’n line equipment for thermoplastic application and structured markings. You can see a video of Nijs BVBA’s BM 2000 DL at work in the video below.
Operator safety – Nº 1 priority
Traffic jams are considerably increasing every year in Belgium, which leads to a decrease in the time for road maintenance work during the day. Therefore, road marking companies are required to work more and more during the night and in the weekends.
“One of the biggest challenges now and for the future is the safety of my guys”
Overall, this raises big concerns for the safety of machine operators. This is due to car drivers having a lower level of concentration and in some cases, a different behaviour during the night time compared to day time.
In addition, the time given by employers for achieving a project is also decreasing. This means road marking companies have less time for applying lines. Therefore, they are in need of reliable equipment that allows fast application speeds and do not present the risk of major break downs.
“Borum is good with safety and that’s a major reason in why we chose them.”
Kris Nijs explains that Borum machines and equipment have helped his business in overcoming some of these challenges by offering easy to use solutions with a robust design. In addition, being able to quickly receive high quaility spare parts with a good lifetime expentancy also plays an important role in Nijs BVBA’s collaboration with Borum.
Last but not least, the BM 2000 DL recently purchased by Nijs BVBA introduced them to the Borum LineMaster computer that is now supplied on all Borum machines. Nijs explains that the computer’s feature to easily document and export various types of information has made it easier and more automised to keep track of their road marking jobs .