Left to right is the life of a product: order, receive, store, make, package, inspect, store, pick, pack, ship.
Every thin line is one item. Blue lines are things being made and shipped. Amber lines are packaging. Grey lines on the left are things being bought. A triangle is one item sitting in stock.
Drag the slider to grow the operation from Day one through Early and Mature to Sprawling. Nothing about the process changes. Only the number of items does.
Use the minus and plus buttons to add or take away one offering, size, package type or channel. The chart and the numbers under it show what came with it.
The numbers under the chart count what the picture shows. Select any number for what it means.
What it leaves out: volume. It counts how many different things there are, not how much of each. The cost index is relative, not dollars. The people figure is an estimate.
An estimate, not a staffing plan. Each function (operators, line associates, processing, warehouse, delivery, leads, quality, purchasing, maintenance, planning) is a fixed part plus a rate times what drives it, such as machines, offerings, pick faces or ways out the door. It does not know volume. Set the rates under Staffing rates.
A relative measure, not dollars. Each logistics driver on the chart (components to receive, items in storage, pick faces, packing units, ways out the door, carrier types) is multiplied by a weight and added up, then scaled so the first keyframe is 1. Set the weights under Logistics cost weights.
Product Complexity Model v1.2 · built 2026-10-04