All Germany articles – Page 13
-
Feature
Mercedes-Benz plans production in Egypt
Mercedes-Benz Cars is planning to build a car plant in Egypt with an as-yet-unnamed local business partner. Markus Schäfer, member of the divisional board of Mercedes-Benz Cars, production and supply chain (left) with Egyptian president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi“Egypt is an attractive and competitive location for production and supporting logistics,” ...
-
Feature
Hanging in the balance
Lower production output, slower growth in export markets and several regulatory and operational issues are threatening to unbalance Poland’s finished vehicle market
-
Feature
Stepping up the quality
There are several advantages of shipping vehicles in kits rather than as completely built units, including lower costs for transport, better customs import conditions and the support of local government in exchange for providing employment to the workforce. A major disadvantage, however, is that defective, damaged or lost goods may ...
-
Feature
German automotive body warns on US trade tensions
German sector association the VDA has warned that ongoing trade tensions between the US and Europe and, separately, the US and China should not be allowed to derail the mutually beneficial relationship its OEMs currently have with the North American country. The warning coincides with news that VW and Ford ...
-
Feature
BMW Regensburg named as ‘manufacturing lighthouse’
The World Economic Forum (WEF) has named BMW’s Regensburg car assembly plant as a “manufacturing lighthouse” of the so-called fourth industrial revolution, thanks to the factory’s innovations in logistics.The plant, in south-eastern Germany, is one of just seven worldwide awarded the honour this year for successful implementation of industry 4.0 ...
-
Feature
Scania trials first CNG truck in Lithuania
Truck and engine manufacturer Scania has started trialling the use of trucks fuelled by compressed natural gas (CNG) in Lithuania.The Swedish company has partnered with Lithuanian logistics provider Vlantana and natural gas developer SG Dujos.Potential advantages for Vlantana following the successful adoption of CNG-fuelled lorries, include being able to drive ...
-
Feature
US considers lifting sanctions against Gaz
The US is planning to lift sanctions imposed on companies owned or controlled by Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska and has once again postponed the introduction of sanctions against the Russian carmaker Gaz Group, in which Deripaska has a controlling interest.The US Treasury department’s office for Foreign Assets Control (FAC) notified ...
-
Feature
Innovation and smart tech: Why BMW is driving both
Handling 31m parts and producing almost 10,000 vehicles each day, BMW is increasingly looking to digitalisation and Industry 4.0 innovations to help it organise its logistics more flexibly…
-
Feature
Progress for all to CEE
In past decades, international investment has flowed into the automotive industry in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) primarily due to it being a low-cost production centre. However, these days the region has much more to attract such investment, including a well-trained workforce, a wide-ranging supplier base and improving logistics infrastructure, ...
-
Feature
Stepping up the pace
When Groupe PSA bought Opel/Vauxhall from GM in 2017 for €2.2 billion ($2.33 billion), Gefco was already providing logistics services for it. Then, when Opel/Vauxhall renewed its contract for fourth-party logistics (4PL) services with Gefco in October 2018 for a further four years, Gefco was tasked with finding further cost ...
-
Feature
Contrasting trends mark Mexico's car market
Domestic sales of light vehicles are down, exports are up, while production is little changed. These are the key trends in recent months to emerge from the latest survey of the Mexican market by the country’s sector body AMIA. The 1.28m vehicles sold in the year to November represented a ...
-
Feature
Sovac starts assembling SKD kits for Audi in Algeria
Audi has begun assembling vehicles at the Relizane plant run by its long-time Algerian partner, Sovac, from semi-knockdown (SKD) kits prepared at the OEM’s Ingolstadt plant in Germany.“[All models] are built at the main plant in Ingolstadt and transported to Barcelona, where they are knocked down into individual assembly groups ...
-
Feature
BMW ups the pace on industry 4.0 technology
BMW Group is to expand its use of industry 4.0 innovations in its production logistics, it has revealed. In 2015, BMW Group joined forces with the Fraunhofer Institute IML to develop the first self-driving Smart Transport Robots (STR). Three years later, the carmaker is increasingly relying on innovations from industry ...
-
Feature
Mercedes-Benz takes to rail to move cars to China
Russia’s railway monopoly RZD has delivered the first batch of finished Mercedes-Benz vehicles from Bremerhaven, in Germany, to Chongqing in China. The new route, which is informally referred to as the new Silk Road, has already proved a viable alternative to ocean shipping vehicles from Europe to China, which takes ...
-
Feature
BMW supports cobalt miners in Congo
BMW has signed up to a pilot project to improve conditions for cobalt miners, their families and neighbouring communities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).With batteries in high demand given the boom in electrical vehicles, global companies such as BMW have been turning their attention to how cobalt ...
-
Feature
British automotive industry finds new markets
Asia was the fastest growing foreign market for the UK’s automotive sector last year, with the value of exported goods up 21% on 2016, a new survey has shown.The Asian increase helped lift the sector’s total exports to £40 billion ($51.5 billion) – a 26% increase in two years – ...
-
Feature
Scan Global to purchase IQS Group
Copenhagen, Denmark-based supply chain management company Scan Global Logistics is acquiring 100% of German niche automotive logistics provider, International Quality Service Group (IQS).Founded in 1998, IQS specialises in delivering cars by air or sea to exhibitions and testing events worldwide. Its services include infrastructural support for operation of testing projects ...
-
Feature
Economic nationalism to force a lane-change
Typically, the world experiences waves of economic nationalism every three decades but these are often limited to one region each time. Today we’re experiencing a global wave of economic disruption across multiple regions simultaneously. In reaction, automotive manufacturers are having to increase the flexibility and agility of their supply chains ...
-
Feature
Mosolf to open second base in France
German finished vehicle transporter Mosolf is setting up a technical and logistics centre near Paris-Vatry airport as part of a plan to expand in France.The new base at the ZAC business park, Bussy-Lettrée en Champagne, will officially be opened on December 12.Mosolf, based in Kirchheim, described the new location as ...
-
Feature
Chugging or changing?
Demand for rail transport is growing faster than service providers can keep up with, according to Siegfried Jung, head of planning and steering vehicle dispatch and transport at BMW Group.[related_topics align="right" border="yes"]Jung says that increased demand for rail transport, from both public and industrial sectors, currently exceeds capacity. Rail infrastructure ...