Argus Company makes three products: A, B, and C. Each unit of A costs $4, each unit of B costs $2, and each unit of C costs $1 to produce. Argus must produce at least 20 As, 30 Bs, and 40 Cs, and cannot produce fewer than 200 total units of As, Bs, and Cs combined. Using Excel Solver determine the minimum cost.

I don't have "Excel Solver"

290 To determine the minimum cost, you can use Excel Solver, which is a tool used to find the optimal solution for mathematical problems, such as minimizing cost or maximizing profit.

Here's how you can use Excel Solver to solve this problem:

Step 1: Set up your Excel spreadsheet
Create a table with the following columns: Product (A, B, C), Unit Cost, Quantity Produced, and Total Cost. Fill in the unit costs as $4 for A, $2 for B, and $1 for C. Leave the Quantity Produced and Total Cost fields blank for now.

Step 2: Define the constraints
In this case, the constraints are as follows:
- At least 20 units of A must be produced
- At least 30 units of B must be produced
- At least 40 units of C must be produced
- The total number of units produced (A + B + C) must be at least 200

To set up these constraints in Excel Solver, you will need to define cells that reference these values. For example, you can use cell E2 for the total quantity of A, E3 for the total quantity of B, E4 for the total quantity of C, and E5 for the total quantity produced.

Step 3: Set up the objective function
The objective function is the formula that calculates the total cost based on the quantities produced. In this case, you can use the formula: =E2*$B2 + E3*$B3 + E4*$B4. This formula multiplies the unit cost of each product by the quantity produced and adds them up.

Step 4: Use Excel Solver to find the minimum cost
To use Excel Solver, you first need to enable it. Go to the "Data" tab and click on "Solver" in the "Analysis" group. If you don't see Solver, you may need to install it or enable the add-in.

In the Solver Parameters dialog box, set the following options:
- Set the "Set Objective" field to the total cost cell (E5 in this case).
- Select "Min" in the "To" field since we want to minimize the cost.
- In the "By Changing Variable Cells" field, select the quantity cells (E2:E4 in this case).
- Set the constraints for each product, ensuring they meet the minimum requirements.
- Add a constraint for the total combined units, making sure it meets the minimum requirement.
- Click on "Add" for each constraint and set the values accordingly.

After setting up the constraints and options, click "Solve" to let Excel Solver find the optimal solution.

Once Solver has found a solution, it will update the quantity produced for each product and the total cost. The values in cells E2:E4 will provide the optimal production quantities, and the value in cell E5 will show the minimum cost.