Excel 2010 Bible

Part V: Analyzing Data with Excel

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The total shipping cost is $55,515, and all the constraints are met. Notice that shipments to Miami

come from both St. Louis and Boston.

FIGURE 37.12

The solution that was created by Solver.

Allocating resources

The example in this section is a common type of problem that’s ideal for Solver. Essentially, prob-

lems of this sort involve optimizing the volumes of individual production units that use varying

amounts of fixed resources. Figure 37.13 shows an example for a toy company.

On the CD
This workbook is available on the companion CD-ROM. The file is named allocating resources.xlsx.

This company makes five different toys, which use six different materials in varying amounts. For

example, Toy A requires 3 units of blue paint, 2 units of white paint, 1 unit of plastic, 3 units of

wood, and 1 unit of glue. Column G shows the current inventory of each type of material. Row 10

shows the unit profit for each toy.