Sergio Marchionne has announced that, as part of a program to name Group plants after illustrious historical individuals, the Pomigliano d’Arco factory (above) will be dedicated to the philosopher Giambattista Vico.

The Chief Executive Officer of Fiat, Sergio Marchionne, met yesterday with the executives, heads and managers of the Fiat Group Automobiles plant at Pomigliano d’Arco for an update on the extraordinary industrial relaunch plan one week before the resumption of production activities.

The Pomigliano plant, originally opened to facilitate production of the Alfasud model in the early 1970s and which is located near Naples, is today responsible for the production of all Alfa Romeo's key volume models, the Alfa 147, 159, 159 Sportwagon and GT Coupé. Its temporary closure since the beginning of the year has hit Alfa Romeo's sales right across Europe very hard.

After expressing his appreciation for the good work done thus far and the results achieved by the employee training program, as well as the work that has already been completed on the plants, Sergio Marchionne pointed out that the premises for meeting the plan’s targets of improving efficiency and quality have been laid.

However, it will be absolutely necessary to continue working with commitment and determination when production activity is resumed next March 3. The Group’s commitment to employ all workers was confirmed. As a result of the expected reduction in lost man-hours, desaturation problems will emerge in the coming months. This problem will be resolved by transferring painting and assembly operations for a portion of Fiat Bravo production from Cassino starting from the coming month. There will be no repercussions for the Cassino plant insofar as the transferred activities will be offset at the Cassino plant by stepped-up production of the Lancia Delta.

An advanced logistics centre serving Pomigliano will be set up to streamline restocking of components for the production lines. About 300 people trained in the basics of World Class Logistics will be dedicated to this structure after participating in a specific course to last about two months.

It was also communicated that Pomigliano and Cassino will constitute one single manufacturing hub, which will benefit from the proximity of the two plants, the technological and plant characteristics that they share, and an integrated and common supplier base. In this manner, it will be possible to achieve improved performance in terms of manufacturing rationalization and operational benefits. Finally, Sergio Marchionne announced that, as part of a program to name Group plants after illustrious historical individuals, the Pomigliano d’Arco factory will be dedicated to the philosopher Giambattista Vico.