Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions). Your first question comes from the line of Edward Marshall from Sidoti & Company. Please proceed.
Edward Marshall - Sidoti & Company
Good morning, guys.
Joseph Berenato
Good morning.
Joe Bellino
Good morning.
Edward Marshall - Sidoti & Company
The question is, the first question anyway, you said that Boeing was continuing to take shipments through their downtime here. My question is, if Boeing is out now till January like you're saying, how long do you think that they will continue to take shipments, and at the same rate?
Joseph Berenato
Ed don't know, certainly I would think that if we got into November and the strike hadn't been settled, I mean deeply in the November, they may look to further revise downward the shipments. In our 10-Q, which came out this morning, we talked about the fact that we expected sales in the fourth quarter because of the Boeing strike to be down between $5.8 million and $7 million in sales and the range really tried to address the possibility that they might further reduce the build rate during the fourth quarter if the strike really did run to year end.
Edward Marshall - Sidoti & Company
Okay. That said, the absorption rate of the $5 million to $7 million, how easy is it for you to kind of maintain the same kind of margins that you have, the operating margins, obviously, I mean there is going to some impact but can you quantify the impact that you may feel granted that you're carrying a lower sales rate and have the same operations.
Joseph Berenato
What we're trying to do here, of course, is to try to maintain good results. We've had a reassignment of some people on to other new programs that we've won. We've conducted a limited number of reductions in headcount where we were unable to reassign people. So, we're looking to try to control the overhead with the lower volume on the Boeing programs.
Quite frankly, our biggest defense is going to be the work on other non-Boeing programs, which will absorb both the labor and the overhead. So, our success in doing that will really determine how successful we are in maintaining margins.
Edward Marshall - Sidoti & Company
Okay. Then the last question, $853,000 impact in the third quarter here, when did you kind of go to the lower production rate?
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