Step-By-Step Optimization With Excel Solver - The Excel Statistical Master

When I bought this book I was a little perplexed because some people had told me I could not use SOLVER to help me reach my objective. As an organizer of golf games, I have to schedule my players so that each one has an equal opportunity to be matched with any other player. For example, I will not match 2 players who have been playing together many times in the past. Since on average, I have 20 players to match in foursomes, it means 4,845 different combinations. It is clearly impossible to manually find the optimal combinations in a short period of time.Being an EXCEL adept, I then considered to try the add-in SOLVER. To get started, I bought and thorougly read the book written by Mr. Harmon. Having no clue about SOLVER, the first few chapters were rather arrid to read but after downloading the examples and with the explanations in the book, everything became much clearer. Not being a skilled mathematician, it took some efforts to get the knack of it but it was really worthwhile. The book clearly describe the main elements to consider like : clear definition of the problem to be solved and constraints, how to define the calculations to be made and so on. The only thing missing is a list of clear definition of the terms used in the book. This would have made the reading of the first few chapters much easier.I then applied my new understanding of SOLVER to the problem I described above and finally got the optimal solution no matter how many players I had to combine in about 60 seconds. This book has been really helpful and without it I would still have to keep trying to manually achieve my objectives.I would recommend this book to anyone interested by SOLVER but be ready to challenge your mathematical skills although you don't have to be a genius to take advantage of it.Michael

This book is not a general book about how to use solver but rather a cookbook which treats specific common problems such as scheduling a small number of workers.It does not bore down to the fundamentals and show one how to set up problems other than those for which it has "recipes". For example, I want to use it to schedule a series of plays at a week-long theater festival, but can not figure out, in effect, how to arrange the input data, though I can write all the constraint equations and the objective function for an integer program and have used other special-purpose LP programs such as LINDO (too expensive now) in the past. If you are quite familiar with linear algebra the book will probably be easier to use. My secretary, a university math major without specific LP experience was able to solve problems with it.

Very simple, straight forward though. It is a book for beginners. If you do not know anything about solver than I recommend to buy it. However if you have some knowledge in this tool, there are better books which could help you to go deep in your learnings.

Excel Solver is a tool that most folks never use. I was one of those people. I was working on a project, and was told that solver might be helpful. I did some research online, and was more confused than ever. I started looking for a book that might help me. I got this book, and was not sure what to expect. It surpassed my expectations!The book explains the concepts behind the solver, the best way to set up the "problem", and how to use the tool effectively. It also gives many examples including the files. The files are stored online, and you can download them so you can see everything in excel.The author does a fantastic job on this book. While I'm not a solver "expert", I am definetly much smarter about it than I was before. Trust me, if you need to understand the solver tool, this book will get you there!

This is a poorly written book. The author or his representative did not take the time to edit the book. Consequently, it is filled with spelling and grammatical errors. The book is not organized in a logical sequence. Examples in the book are poorly represented, making it difficult and tedious to grasp what otherwise are simple concepts. I regret buying this book.

I love this book! It tells me everything I need to know about how to use Excel Solver for optimization using deterministic approach. Simply put, this has been the BEST one so far! My hope is that in the next edition Mark Harmon will update the examples with more complex ones involving the use of financial projections.Purwadi Nitimidjojo, Deloitte Financial Modelling Services

I purchased the Kindle version of this book today after a week of looking online for thorough treatment of the use of Excel's (Frontline's) Solver tool. On this primary point this book is exactly what I was looking for. In fact, as I skipped through the entire book as a quick review I found a tip that made me say, "Just this tip alone is worth the price." You are forewarned however of many grammatical mistakes and wrong words in the writing. This is very distracting for what is largely a technical piece requiring more concentration. I do not own the printed version which may indicate that the conversion to Kindle format is the problem. Annoying regardless of reason.

On the one hand, this book is the most thoroughly comprehensive, yet simple, exposition on the complexities of Excel Solver with detailed explanations and well-conceived methodology. Definitively, a must-have Excel book. Its single shortcoming is the author's apparent use of English as a second language which in a number of instances makes the discussion awkward and difficult to follow. A single read-through by an experienced editor would have been curative and relatively inexpensive. Unfortunately, the book suffers from lack of editorial review.

+ sehr gute Definition der einzelnen Solver-Einstellungen und deren Optimalitätsraster+ Präzise in der Beschreibung+ sehr gut nachvollziehbar= gutes Buch- nur Implementierung in Excel- keine Implementierung in VBA- keine kombinierten Beispiele= sonst wäre es ein Top-Buch=> Ingesamt bei 15 EUR gutes Preis-Leistungsverhältnis