Introduction

This topic will help you use the information in the Solver Reports, which can be produced whenever the Solver finds a solution. We'll explain how to interpret the values in the Answer, Sensitivity and Limits reports, using as an example the Product Mix problem, which appears as sheet tab B in the workbook SOLVSAMP.123.

All three types of reports can be useful, but we recommend that you focus on the Sensitivity Report. When properly interpreted, this report will tell you a great deal about your model and its optimal solution, that you could not easily determine by simply inspecting the final solution values on the worksheet. Using the Sensitivity report, you can determine what would happen if you changed your model in various ways and re-ran the Solver, without your having to actually carry out these steps.

All of the reports are 1-2-3 worksheets, with grid lines turned off. You can turn the grid lines back on, if you wish, through the Sheet Properties... menu option (using the View tab in the dialog box). Because the reports are worksheets, you can copy and edit the report information, perform calculations on the numbers in the reports, or create graphs directly from the report data. This makes the 1-2-3 97 Solver's reports considerably more useful than those produced by standalone optimization software packages.