Take a big handful of large nails and drop them into a box that they should just be able to fit in. This gives you a picture of the problem faced by many manufacturers of this type of product: efficient packaging. Nails, bolts and other long metal products that are simply dropped into a box take up approximately 30 to 40% more space than when the same products are neatly lined up like in a box of matches. Carefully packaged products yield volume gains and are presented more attractively.

Imagine how beneficial it would be if aeroplanes could be powered by electric motors rather than jet fuel. And not just in terms of financial profit but also reduced CO2 emissions and noise. Important steps have already been taken to achieve this, such as trials with aircraft taxiing. If the Air France-KLM fleet could do this daily, it would result in annual savings of 73 million euros in jet fuel. Plus a significant reduction in CO2 emissions. Magnets are indispensable in a electric motor, and progress is being made in this field too.

With the recently purchased software for magnetic calculations, Martijn Leskens, R&D engineer at Goudsmit Magnetics, uses the finite elements or FEM method to show how a product behaves in a magnetic system and quantify the magnetic performance. Martijn: ‘We can efficiently optimize this product performance with magnetic calculations. This allows us to accurately predict how a magnet will behave in terms of depth of the magnetic field, which is

The recently developed intelligent mooring system from iDL, the intelligent Dock Locking System from Dutch company Mampaey Offshore Industries, is the world's first magnetic mooring system. It makes it possible for a London ferry to dock in just ten seconds. The mooring system consists of two hydraulically controlled arms, each with a magnetic plate at the end, measuring approximately 1500 x 1500 mm, which hold the ferry in a stable position at the dock.