Mueller Water Products Inc

We consider backlog to represent orders placed by customers for which goods or services have yet to be shipped. Backlog is a meaningful indicator for many of our product lines. The delivery lead time for certain product lines such as specialty valves can be longer than one year, and we expect approximately 17% of Water Flow Solutions’ backlog at the end of 2024 will not be shipped until beyond 2025. Water Management Solutions manufactures or sources water meter systems that are sometimes ordered in large quantities with delivery dates over several years. We expect approximately 6% of Water Management Solutions’ backlog at the end of 2024 will not be shipped until beyond 2025. With improvement in our manufacturing lead times, particularly for service brass products, we experienced a decrease in our overall backlog compared to the prior year. Backlog for Water Management Solutions and Water Flow Solutions are as follows:

Sales cycles for metering systems can span several years, and it is common for customers to place orders throughout the contract period. Although we believe we have a common understanding with our customer as to the total value of a contract when it is awarded, we do not include customer orders in our backlog until the customer order is received.