Production tier calculator
Model v0.1Five questions about a product map it to a production tier. The result is encoded in the page address: copy the link and the exact scenario travels with it. The model is a draft, published to be challenged.
Each answer scores points in the order its options are listed, counting from zero: batch size 0–4, recurrence 0–3, stability 0–2, quality 0–2, portability 0–2. The scores are weighted (batch size ×1, recurrence ×1.5, stability ×2, quality ×2, portability ×3) for a maximum total of 22.5, and the tier is 1 + (4 × total ÷ 22.5), rounded to the nearest whole number. Two floors apply on top: certified quality requires at least Tier 4, and multi-hub portability requires Tier 5. One cap applies last: a design that is still changing fast is held at Tier 2, because standardization ahead of stability is wasted work. If a floor and the cap collide, the cap wins and the tool says so.
The ladder the score lands on, before floors and cap: Tier 1 Fast start at a weighted total of 0 to 2.5; Tier 2 Light standard, 3 to 8; Tier 3 Modular cell, 8.5 to 14; Tier 4 Validated line, 14.5 to 19.5; Tier 5 Portable blueprint, 20 to 22.5. Reachable totals are always multiples of 0.5, so no answer set ever lands on a rounding boundary. The result above prints your own total, which makes all of this checkable by hand: if you disagree with the tier you got, this is enough to see whether it came from the score, from a floor, or from the cap. Any line beyond the score, the floors and the cap is advisory: it explains without changing the tier.
This is model v0.1, a deliberately simple draft, published so it can be corrected in the Stage 0 expert interviews. Weights, thresholds, and missing factors (BOM structure, energy, tariffs, proximity to demand) are exactly the things to challenge. Corrections: shk@moduloa.com.
This tool answers one half of the question: what tier a product needs. The other half is whether a given site can actually run that tier, which is what the hub readiness scorecard asks, layer by layer. Same v0.1 caution, opposite direction.
To register interest in the model, or in building it, say so to the founder. The link lands on /contact, which states the address in prose and offers a mail already addressed and titled for this tool. It carries no part of your scenario: if you want the exact result to travel too, press Copy result link above and paste it in.