Contract Manufacturing, Job Shop Quoting & Make-to-Order calculator
Order Complexity Score Calculator
Prioritize which customer orders need the closest estimating review before you quote. Enter three 1 to 10 scores and the threshold your shop acts on, and the tool returns the risk score and the points over that threshold.
What this calculator does
- Score a customer order's complexity risk from impact, likelihood and detection, and check it against the threshold you set.
Formula used
- Complexity risk score = impact × likelihood × detection
- Risk index = complexity risk score ÷ 10
- Highest factor share = MAX(impact, likelihood, detection) ÷ 30 × 100
- Points over threshold = MAX(complexity risk score − threshold, 0)
- Warning when complexity risk score is at or above the entered threshold
Inputs explained
- Impact Score: How badly a missed complexity hurts cost, quality or delivery.
- Likelihood Score: How often orders like this one hit complexity problems.
- Detection Score: How hard the problem is to catch before parts are made.
- Risk Threshold Score: Score at or above which the order needs a closer review.
How to use the result
- Best suited to screening new customer orders before quoting, setting a review threshold for the estimating team, comparing complexity across repeat order types.
- A multiplicative score is ordinal: 200 is not twice as risky as 100. Equal scores can hide different risk profiles, so read the three factors too.
Current U.S. benchmarks
- The U.S. prime lending rate is 7.00% (Federal Reserve via FRED, 2026-10-02). Payback and financing math should start from today's rate, not a remembered one.
Common questions
- What do the three 1 to 10 scores stand for? Impact is how badly a missed complexity hurts cost, quality or delivery. Likelihood is how often this kind of order goes wrong. Detection is how hard the problem is to catch before shipping. Anchor each score to examples your team agrees on.
- Why multiply the scores instead of adding them? Multiplication lets one weak area drive the result, which matches how a single unknown step can sink an order. Adding would let three mild factors outrank one severe factor.
- How should I set the risk threshold? Pick the score above which the team wants a closer look before quoting. Score the orders that went wrong last year, then set the threshold below the lowest of them.
- Does a score under the threshold mean the order is safe? No. The score ranks complexity for review, not cost or margin. A simple order can still lose money if the price is wrong, so check the quote economics separately.
Related guides
Last reviewed 2026-10-01.