An Every Member Canvass

An old school term for going around a membership and seeing whose in. In Boeing's case, the club includes those who are currently flying firmed up or delivered 787s from prior orders. The importance of this "Club" has spurred Boeing to make a 14 month 787 production goal with its suppliers and customers. It has or will have the orders to support this commitment. The case in point is United has now firmed up another nine 787-9 on Boeing's books. By the end of this year, more orders will be added. How many is pure conjecture but any indication of this order goal is that another 50 orders remain to be gleaned from the marketplace during 2018?

I haven't forgotten the 40 hanging orders for the 787-10 "committed" by Emirates during this year but has not yet firmed. That number could be part of Boeing's sales canvass of how many 787's its current customers are signaling as an eventual "Firm" order. 

In a perspective view, Boeing could book 170 787's during 2018. That would be a pinnacle year when no new Boeing 787 model types were introduced and only current models were ordered. This also would be "a great disappointment" for Airbus as Boeing's customers are reloading the order gun with Boeing's bullet-nosed 787's. Whatever is not booked this year could flow into next year thus making the decision to increase 787 production to 14 a month a logical decision. Boeing then needed to ramp up production through its supplier base giving it a long enough lead time for its supplier base.

Only 644 units of the 787 remain to be delivered at this time and a healthy order year makes the 14 a month goal possible. Boeing has made its customer canvass with those already held 787's in its respective fleets. So Boeing has a ballpark number of how many 787's it will need over the next five years for satisfying its customer's needs. A 14 a month pace times 60 months or five years would require 840 unit backlog of 787's where now it only has 644 units yet to be built. 

Boeing needs another 196 787's ordered over the next five years and that "canvass" plus committed orders suggest it has met that objective easily. Taking this assumption further, it also spills into the deferred costs reduction of its $24 Billion to go from about $30 Billion initially. The unit analysis of 1398 total 787's booked will grow to 1594 if Boeing receives another 196 orders during the next 60 months. That is achievable and Boeing already knows what it can do over the next five years driving the deferred cost to zero long before the fifth year arrives.