Novelis, a leader in aluminum rolling and recycling, has opened what it calls the world’s largest aluminum recycling center. Located adjacent to the company’s rolling mill in Nachterstedt, Germany, the $258m (€200m) recycling center will process up to 400,000 metric tons of aluminum scrap annually, turning it back into high-value aluminum ingots to feed the company’s European manufacturing network.

A mere four years after overtaking the U.S. as the world's largest car market, China's automotive industry has arrived at an important inflection point. The days of growth rates above 20 percent are over, and rates may dip as low as 6 percent by the end of the decade. Several factors are driving this shift.

BMW has confirmed the much anticipated news that it plans to invest approximately $1bn in a full production plant in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosí.

Toyota's plan to close its Torrance headquarters and ship 3,000 jobs to a Dallas suburb has triggered a new round of hand-wringing among those who see business-friendly Texas gaining at the expense of regulation-choked California.

Add Spartanburg, S.C., to the list of manufacturing hotspots. That's where BMW AG last week announced it will invest $1bn to build the equivalent of a new factory to its already formidable U.S. production site. Following the expansion, BMW's U.S. complex will become the automaker's biggest, larger than any it operates in Germany, its home.

Analyst Insight: Customers want orders faster and without additional shipping cost. And that's impacting how companies deploy inventory across their networks. In addition to defining the parts (SKU) mix and inventory levels needed to support service goals, you must consider how many distribution nodes you'll need and where to locate them. You must balance cost and service across several variables. And the decisions have ripple effects throughout your operations. - John Giangrande, Automotive Industry Leader, Fortna Inc.

Conventional wisdom suggests that the latest attempt to revive Volvo as an automotive brand faces very long odds. Under the umbrella of its corporate parent Geely, the Chinese automaker, Volvo's 450,000 annual sales aren't self-sustaining.

Each disruption in global supply chains seems to bring a new surprise. On March 31 of this year, it was an explosion and fire at a chemical plant in Marl, Germany. The incident at the factory of Evonik Industries resulted in the deaths of two workers and caused damage that will take all summer to repair.