Excel Tools: Solver and

Goal Seek
A Brown Bag discussion for N81
26 Sept 2012
THIS PRESENTATION IS
UNCLASSIFIED

Purpose
This Talk promises to:
(re)introduce some powerful tools in Excel
Optimization centric functions
Goal seek
Solver

To show practical examples of how they

may be used

This Talk will not:

Be a course in Linear Optimization

References
Albright, S. C. (2007) VBA for modelers
Thompson Brookstone.
Walkenbach, J Microsoft Excel 2010
Bible Wiley.
Ragsdale, C. Decision Analysis with
Spreadsheets
Balakrishnan, N. Managerial Decision
Modeling with Spreadsheets
Frontline Systems: www.solver.com

Block 0: Goal Seek

Goal Seek: A Line Search algorithm that
iteratively seeks to find the (User set) goal
value.
Goods: Robust, fast, and easy to use. Can work on
non-linear problems
Bads: Goal Seek is not an optimization algorithm,
but rather a regulated form of iterated guessing.
Sometimes doesnt work. Can miss multiple/optimal
solutions
Others: Will only take literals as the goal value.
For Nerds: Is it Binary or Golden Section? Microsoft
doesnt specify in documentation

The important thing to know about

Goal Seek:
G/S simply automates the trial and
error approach to problem solving.
In strict terms, Goal Seek is
Guessing.

Invoking Goal Seek

Data -> What If Analysis -> Goal
Set Cell: The
Seek
target

The desired value

of the Set Cell.
Must be a literal.

By Changing

Goal Seek Example

Given a maintenance department
with two shops, if aircraft break at a
rate of 1 per day, at what rate does
each shop need to fix planes in order
to have 80% chance that at any
given moment there are no down
planes?
This is a queuing problem

Solving
The hard way: Break out your stochs
textbook, and try to formulate this as
a Markov Chain
The Easy way: Q.xls and Goal Seek!

Goal Seek Example

Goal Seek Example II: Military

Application
Recall Lanchesters Aimed Fire model
of combat from our last lunchtime
series:
dB
R

dt
dB
B
dt

.05; B0 100; R0 100

Given
, find
the value of
that results in 70 blue
survivors when the Red side is
eliminated.

Approach 1
TOO EASY! Just solve:
1
B (t )
2

1
R (t )
2

B0 R0

R0 B0

B t
e
R
R t
e
B

BR

1

2

BR

B0 R0

R0 B0

t BR

t BR

Approach II
Use Goal Seek!

Summary
Goal seek is ideal in situations where
you want answers, not proofs!
DISCLAIMERS:
You will not know if there are multiple
solutions
You will not get any sensitivity analysis

SOME USEFUL EXCEL

FUNCTIONS

Named Cells
Sometimes, you want to use cells,
but D$3$ can become cumbersome
to type.
Also, you might want to be able to
understand the formulae without an
interpreter.
Naming Cells is very handy for this!
How to?
Use the Name box!

Naming Cells

Name Box

Which is easier to
understand?

Formula Auditing
Sometimes, you want to know what
the goezintas for a particular
answer are. Theres a great function
for this: Formula Auditing
Formulas -> Formula Auditing

Example

I cannot overstress how useful this is for reviewing someone elses

spreadsheet!

SUMPRODUCT()
Sometimes you have data in two
columns, and you wish to find the
total the product of the two sides.
Such as finding the expectation and
variance of a discrete variable manually
Tallying up costs by aircraft type

Excel has a special function for this:

SUMPRODUCT()

SUMPRODUCT() II
Takes two arrays, X and Y as inputs
Must be equally sized

Returns a single number, which is:

X
Y
ii
i

In English: Multiply all these by all those and

add up
Very useful for the objective function of a LP.

SUMXMY2()
Sometimes you want to find the
squared Euclidian distance between
two points or sets of points.
Such as distance between ships in the
example we will work later
Or OLS (Ordinary Least Squares)

SUMXMY2:
Why did they name it that? I dont know!
SUM of X Minus Y Squared (2)

SUMXMY2() II
Takes two arrays, X and Y and returns
the sum of square differences (i.e.
squared Euclidian measure)

(X
i

Yi )

Block 1: Solver
What is it: an optimization package. Can handle LP,
MIP, NLP. Its not anyones favorite package, but its
the one we have.
Goods: Graphical interface with spreadsheets can
make formulation more visually appealing
Bads: There are some problems where it fails to
converge. Limits on number of variables, and
number of Integer/Binary variables
Others: Some important things under the hood that
should be considered (upcoming slides)
For Nerds: Ive never used Evolutionary Solver
mode.

Invoking Solver
To use Solver, it must be installed
Why? Because Bill Gates Hates you,
thats why!

To use Solver in VBA, it must be

installed there as well
Why? See above!

Installing Solver Main

Body

Installing Solver- VBA

Block II: How to use Solver

Solver Differences - 2010

Excel 2010 has a different (and not
better) interface.
Report options are now available
after the solution is complete
Used to be an option in the
dialog box
Report Options

A Toy Force Structure Problem

You need to put together a force that is able to
carry 15 helicopters, using a mix of ships at a
minimum cost.
Data Given:

Use at least 1 LHA, 2 LCS, and no more than 4 of any

type of ship.

Switch to Spreadsheet

Some Pointers
I like to use color:
Objective function GREEN
Constraints RED
Variables BLUE

This makes it easy to see whats

what

Sensitivity Report

Okay, well, that answer was great

(but what does .5 ships mean?)
In order to go forward, we need to
solve as a Mixed Integer Program.
In Excel, we add another constraint
and a whole universe of
complexity
WARNING! It is NOT GENERALLY true that the solution to a
problem with Integer constraints is close to the associated
Linear Program!

Solver Pro Tips

Frontline solvers claims that the limit
on variables is 200,
But it might crash much, much sooner!

Solutions:
A. Upgrade solver
B. Use MATLAB solver
C. Ask us (NPS) for help.

Solver: what can go wrong

Heres something that can go wrong:
Max X^2, unconstrained, with an
incumbent solution of zero.

Practical Example:
Optimum placement of Ships
http://puzzlor.editme.com/Relief-Miss
ion

Problem Description
Given the map shown and the ability to
place two ships, what is the optimum
placement to minimize the maximum
distance to a target?
Real-world applications:
Ballistic Missile Defense
Medical Facility Placement
Logistics Hubs
Others?

First, an easier Problem

What if there was only one ship to be
placed?

min z
X ,Y , Z

s.t.
Z ( X xi ) (Y-yi )
2

0 X 10
0 Y 10

Now, the Placement

Problem
This is actually two problems
If we knew which ship was associated with
each Target , this would be easy
If we knew where the two ships were
stationed, it would be easy to know which
Target to associate with them

We have to figure both out,

simultaneously
This is a hard problem but one that is
probably worth the effort

Formulation
min Z
X ,Y , Z , S

s.t.
Z ( X 1 xi ) 2 (Y1 yi ) 2 (1 S ) * BigPen i
Z ( X 2 xi ) 2 (Y2 yi ) 2 ( S ) * BigPen
S [0,1]

Why does this work?

Because for at one and only one of the
constraints, the RHS is negative, and
therefore irrelevant.
Here were using constraints to shape the
objective function!

While combining the constraints into an

S * ( X 1 xi ) (1 S ) *( X 2 xi )
expression like
looks good, it is highly non-linear and may
cause solver to crash

Summary
Today we talked about:
Excel Practice, generally
Goal Seek: A useful way for getting answers
but Proofs
Excel Functions:
Named cells are infinitely better than R$2$:D$2$,
etc.
SUMPRODUCT()
SUMXMY2()

Solver
Practical Applications.

Final Note: Presentation

Donts
BEWARE what MS office does when you copy
and paste!
If you copy and paste a graph from a spreadsheet, you
might be pasting the entire spreadsheet. This may be
handing someone else your entire analysis.
Solution: Be sure to paste graphs as pictures

BEWARE what MS office does when you use

track changes.
You might leave them in.
Solution: Copy your text, paste to clipboard, then
copy and paste back to word

Solution to both problems: convert to .pdf before

distribution

Point of Contact
CDR Harrison Schramm
hcschram@nps.edu
schrammhc@nps.navy.smil.mil
831.656.2358
After April, 2013
BE922