Aerospace & Defense: Key performance indicators & metrics

We must minimize disruption caused by production changes, achieve and maintain operational stability and implement productivity improvements to meet customer demand and maintain our profitability. We have plans to increase production rates on several of our commercial aircraft programs, while continuing ongoing development and production of new or derivative aircraft. These plans include increasing the 737 production rate to 47 per month in 2026, as well as further production rate increases that will require a new production line. There is risk that planned production rate increases may be delayed or not occur at all if our production health key performance indicators and rate readiness process guided by our Safety Management System do not support increasing production rates or we are unable to obtain FAA concurrence. Similarly, there is risk that planned 787 production rate increases may be delayed or not occur at all. We also continue to seek opportunities to reduce the costs of building our aircraft, including working with our suppliers to reduce supplier costs, identifying and implementing productivity improvements and optimizing how we manage inventory. If production rate changes on any of our programs are delayed or create significant disruption to our production system, or if our suppliers cannot timely deliver components that comply with design specifications to us at the cost and rates necessary to achieve our targets, we may be unable to meet delivery schedules and/or the financial performance of one or more of our programs may suffer.

Operational challenges impacting the production system for one or more of our commercial aircraft programs could result in additional production delays and/or failure to meet customer demand for new aircraft, either of which would negatively impact our revenues and operating margins. Our commercial aircraft production system is extremely complex. Operational issues, including certification and/or delivery delays, quality issues, labor instability, supply chain constraints, defects in supplier components, failure to meet internal performance plans, or delays or failures to achieve required regulatory approval, result in additional out-of-sequence work and increased production costs, as well as delayed deliveries to customers, impacts to aircraft performance and/or increased warranty or fleet