01
Running out
The late decision can't be rescued. Sales stop while the next batch catches up.
For small manufacturers who make and sell their own products
Inventory isn't a count. It's a countdown.
Know when to make more, and whether you can.
Gravidia's planning engine works backward from the day each product will run out, through production time, to the day you need to order materials.
In private development. Opening to a small first group.
COUNTDOWNToday · Oct 21
Leather Tote · Natural
LT-NAT · 50 on hand · selling 2.1 a day
Order materials
By Oct 24
400 brass zippers · 7-day lead time
3 days leftStart production
By Oct 31
Batch of 120 · 14 days to make
10 daysRuns out
Nov 14
At today's sales speed
24 days
Card Wallet · BlackStart production by Nov 6 · 16 days
Dress Belt · BrownOn track · next step Dec 3
Everyone sees the product. Nobody sees the operation behind it.
The reviews, the craftsmanship, the restock that sold out in a day. Behind it: a costing spreadsheet one price change out of date, supplier lead times kept in your head, and a production schedule that lives on a whiteboard.
You're not bad at business. You've been holding the operation up by hand.
The problem
The Timing Gap
The distance between when you find out you need more, and when you needed to start.
12-day Timing Gap
7 days: too late to make a batch
Oct 3
You needed to start production
Oct 15
You find out
Oct 22
Out of stock
Spreadsheets tell you what already happened. By the time the numbers look bad, the moment to start has passed. The gap costs you in one of three ways:
02
The scramble
It can be rescued, at a price: air freight instead of sea, rush batches, overtime, and materials at whatever the supplier charges this week.
03
Ordering big, just in case
After a scare, you over-correct. Cash sits on the shelf as materials you won't use for months.
A real order
Ship by sea, not by air.
Sea freight is the cheapest way to bring goods from an overseas supplier. It's also the slowest, so you can only choose it if you see the need coming. Here's one recent order of 5,000 pieces, quoted both ways.
By air
10 days in transit
- Goods
- $6,870
- Shipping
- $3,000
- Landed cost
- $9,870
$1.97per piece
By sea
30 days in transit
- Goods
- $6,870
- Shipping
- $950
- Landed cost
- $7,820
$1.56per piece
$2,050 saved on one order.
$0.41 less per piece: 21% off the cost of every unit.
The price of the cheaper option: deciding 20 days earlier.
How it works
From the day you'll run out, back to the day you need to order.
- 1
Connect your store
Gravidia connects to Shopify for your products, locations and stock levels, so your counts stay current without retyping.
- 2
Define how each product is built
Materials, work activities and sub-assemblies, entered once. Costs and requirements flow from there.
- 3
Let the planning engine run the countdown
For every product, it works out the day it runs out, the day production must start, and the day each material must be ordered.
- 4
Get the Daily Brief
Each morning, by email: what to make, what to order, and what can wait.
The whole chain, not a reorder point
Order zippers
Oct 24
7-day lead time
Start production
Oct 31
14 days to make
Tote runs out
Nov 14
Recipes can nest: a sub-assembly's own materials are planned back from the date the sub-assembly is needed.
From: Gravidia · 6:00 AM
Your Daily Brief · Oct 21
Order now
400 brass zippers for Leather Tote · Natural
Due Oct 24 · 3 days left
Coming up
Start a batch of 120 Leather Tote · Natural
Due Oct 31 · materials on hand except zippers
Everything else is on track.
You don't reorder what you make. You plan it.
You make it. That takes materials, lead time and capacity to run the batch. An inventory tool can tell you a number is getting low. It can't tell you when to order the zipper for the bag you'll run out of in six weeks.
Gravidia's planning engine works out the whole chain: materials, then production, then the day you run out.
Who it's for
Built for small manufacturers who make what they sell.
A fit if
- You make your products from recipes with purchased materials
- It takes weeks or months to get from ordering materials to sellable stock
- You produce in batches and keep finished stock
- You have enough products and materials that tracking them by hand has become hard
Not a fit if
- You resell products you didn't make
- You build to order or make one-offs
- You sell a single product
- A contract manufacturer makes your products for you
Who's building it
Built in Detroit by a small manufacturer.
Gravidia is built by Tony Zink. It isn't a demo: it's being built and tested at Zink Wheels, a real manufacturing business with real materials, real batches and real multi-channel sales. Every feature has to work against an actual production schedule before it ships.
It's early, and we'd rather say so. There's no customer list to show you yet. What there is: a working product, an operator who uses it, and a plan to onboard a small first group properly rather than a large one badly.
Pricing
One planning engine, sized to your business.
Every plan includes the whole planning engine: production recipes with sub-assemblies, the Shopify connection, the countdown and the Daily Brief. Plans differ by size, depending on SKU count and users.
Questions
What is Gravidia?
Production planning and inventory forecasting software for small manufacturers who make and sell their own products. Its planning engine models how each product is built, forecasts when finished goods will run out based on actual sales, and works backward through production and supplier lead times to tell you when to start a batch or order materials.
What's the Timing Gap?
The distance between when you find out you need more and when you needed to start. Most small manufacturers find out from a spreadsheet or an empty shelf, after the moment to act has passed. Gravidia shows each product's countdown, so the decision comes in time.
Who is it for?
Small manufacturers who make their products in batches from purchased materials, where it takes weeks or months to get from ordering materials to sellable stock, and who have enough products and materials that tracking them by hand has become hard. Common examples are leather goods, candles, electronics assembly, paint and chemical mixing, automotive aftermarket parts and small assembly shops.
How is it different from an inventory management tool?
Inventory tools track what you have and tell you when to reorder. That assumes you buy your products. Gravidia is built for businesses that make them, so it models multi-level recipes, production runs, work activities and capacity, and plans backward from a projected stockout date through production time to a material order deadline.
What does it connect to?
Shopify today, for products, locations and inventory levels. Support for more platforms is in development.
Does it handle sub-assemblies and multi-level recipes?
Yes. A product's recipe can include materials, work activities and sub-assemblies, and sub-assemblies have recipes of their own. Update a shared component once and every product that uses it reflects the change.
Does it handle multiple locations?
Yes. Inventory is tracked per product per location, including third-party warehouses, and forecasting accounts for where stock actually sits.
Can it tell me which sales channels are profitable?
Yes. Each product has a fulfillment recipe per sales channel covering platform fees, fulfillment labor, packing materials and shipping, so margin is calculated after every real cost rather than estimated.
When does it launch?
Gravidia is in private development. We're opening it to a small first group rather than launching publicly, and there's no fixed public date. Joining the waitlist is how you hear when that changes.
What will it cost?
$39 to $199 a month, depending on SKU count and users. Every plan includes the whole planning engine. There is no free tier.
Where does my data live?
In a PostgreSQL database hosted on Supabase in the United States. Each business's data is isolated at the database level.
Join the waitlist
We're onboarding a small number of businesses at a time. The questions here aren't filler: they're how we work out who to talk to first.