Cannot grasp concept of Excel Solver Add-In Tool

[moe10134]

Hello Excel Gurus,

I'm having some difficulting understanding and developing models using the Excel 2016 Solver Add-In Tool. The tool will not run unless I create formulas or named ranges. All I have is numbers and need to set up =sumproduct formulas and calculate multiple ranges to calculate net profits, net costs, demand, capacity, linear programming concepts, Sensibility, and Feasible or non-feasible data tables by defining <= or >= constraints.

Question 1: A furniture company manufactures desks and chairs. Each desk uses four units of wood, and each chair uses three units of wood. A desk contributes $250 to profit, and a chair contributes $145. Marketing restrictions require that the number of chairs produced is at least four times the number of desks produced. There are 2,000 units of wood available. Use Solver to maximize the company's profit.

Required answer: What is the optimized company profit?

Question 2: Use SolverTable to see what happens to the decision variables and the total profit when the availability of wood varies from 1,000 to 3,000 in 100-unit increments. Based on your findings, how much would the company be willing to pay for each extra unit of wood over its current 2,000 units? How much profit would the company lose if it lost any of its current 2,000 units?

Required Answer: Round the answer to a whole dollar amount.

If anyone can help get me started and explain where the numbers should go to use the Solver Tool or what formulas or VB code to get started, I really need the help. If Mr. Excel has any videos on how to work with the Solver Tool, can you please send me the link? Or any links on where to start? This is way above my head!

Respectfully,
moe10134

 

[GraH]

Maybe this would be a good start Define and solve a problem by using Solver
Specifically Using Solver to determine the optimal product mix
I tend to use 2 dimensional tables, which is in my professional world mostly enough. Your case at first glance looks slightly more advanced. I would need to study it a bit first.

 

[Gokhan Aycan]

Would this be what you are looking for? If so, just need to turn it into VBA, solve for 1000 to 3000 step 100 instead of just 2000, and maybe plot them on a graph?

Mind you, I haven't used solver or have done linear programming since 2000.

Here:
D11 is the total profit.
B9:B10 are the amount of desks/chairs to produce.
B10 >= 4 * B9 is the chairs must be at least 4 times the desks constraint.
C11 <= B6 is that you have 2000 units of wood constraint. Can be less or equal but not more.

 

[Gokhan Aycan]

By the way, kind of necro? OP's post is almost a month old.

 

[GraH]

By the way, kind of necro? OP's post is almost a month old.

But unanswered... Why would we not offer some support even if the question is open for a while?