Book excerpt: This second edition of the pioneering work on this hot topic captures the major trends and latest achievements in the art of asymmetric catalysis on an industrial scale. A number of completely new real-life case studies written by the world leaders in their respective areas provide a compact and qualified insight into this developing field. The resulting ready reference and handbook collates first-hand and valuable information within a context where it can be easily found. The high-quality contributions illustrate the relevant environments and situations, such as time pressure, how the catalytic step fits into the overall synthesis, or competition with other synthetic approaches, as well as the typical problems encountered in the various phases, including finding/developing the catalyst and optimization of the process or choice of equipment. Both successful and unsuccessful approaches to solve these problems are described.