In the last week of June 1996 the 9th conference of the European Consortium for Math- ematics Industry, ECMI 96, took place at the Technical University of Denmark. The present volume of papers is a selection among the almost 200 contributions to the con- ference. As a logo on the announcements of the conference the organising committee chose a picture of the connection between Denmark and Sweden which is currently under construction. We chose this picture primarily because of the elegant and decorative lines of the bridge, but for other reasons as well: Denmark is a country of islands, and the art of building bridges has a long tradition here. Danish civil engineers have built bridges all over the world and have been rated among the most competent experts in their field. Many have acted as consultants as well as professors at the Technical University of Denmark, and one of them once said: To build a bridge you need steel and mathematics. We think that this selection of papers with its broad spectrum of industrial top- ics proves that the importance of mathematics is continuously growing. Mathematics has penetrated subjects far beyond traditional engineering applications and in more and more places it becomes natural to add mathematics to the list of things you obviously need to succeed.