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Solver function in Excel

Anonymous
2022-02-03T22:54:18+00:00

Hi Team,

Excel is famous for solving many problems, but it has got a problem too, it seems. One of the ad-in named solver doesn't have a "Not equal to" value in constraints which causes trouble in getting the solution and may also result in users switching to other platforms. Is there a solution/ workaround already? If not, are you planning to add this feature to the plug-in?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | Other | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-02-03T23:22:07+00:00

    Hi. Just my thoughts. Solver using a "Not Equal to" is not usually implemented due to limits.

    If you have such a constraint, it usually indicates your model can be implemented differently.

    For Example, x <> 5.

    This means that a value of 4.999 is acceptable.

    So is 4.9999999... etc

    These are all valid, but for all practical purposes, it is close to 5.

    So, in general, it's not really feasible to use <> in a optimization problem without resorting to other techniques.

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