As part of its ambitious growth plans, Fiat Group Automobiles is looking to boost unit sales from some 2.1m units in 2006 to around 3.5m by 2010, which includes significantly raised targets across the portfolio of brands.

Fiat Automobiles' recently appointed head Lorenzo Sistino has decided to assemble a team of high-ranked executives who will help the Italian company to improve its product cycle management. This new 'think-tank', and early target of Sinstino's was due to start its job in late January.

As part of its ambitious growth plans, Fiat Group Automobiles is looking to boost unit sales from some 2.1m units in 2006 to around 3.5m by 2010, which includes significantly raised targets across the portfolio of brands. Besides Fiat, the Alfa Romeo and Lancia  units are targeting 300,000 units sales per year while further progress will be made by the thriving light commercial vehicle business.

The longer a product has been on the market, the more likely it is for demand to fall sharply. Typically, the average model's lifecycle spans seven years, with automakers looking to keep their offerings as fresh as possible with the introduction of new equipment features and powertrains, along with some design changes.

Until recently it was typical that a given model was face-lifted only once throughout the whole lifecycle, but the current trend, forced upon the leading car manufacturers by the highly competitive product atmosphere, is to carry it out more often, with German brand BMW regarded as one of the trend-setters.

report: Samar