In this video, we are going to learn about some of the different types of Optimization Solvers Softwares that are out there. Specifically, we're going to see how to set up the Excel Solver Add-In in order to solve optimization problems in spreadsheets. There are several types of optimization solvers that you can use. For example, LINDO, CPLEX, Gurobi Optimizer. These are some of the well-known software that are used specifically to solve optimization problems in businesses and in research and development contexts. However, Excel or spreadsheets also have built-in support for optimization solvers with some of the basic functionalities that you would need. Therefore, we are going to be using Excel spreadsheet which is easily available to everyone to be able to solve optimization problems. If you want much more advanced Plug-ins for Excel, then you can visit solver.com to get support for those type of Plugins. If you are working in a professional environment, you will probably have access to LINDO, CPLEX, and Gurobi Optimizer to do it in an industry setting. Those are industry level or industry scale software specifically designed for optimization. Let's get started with Excel solvers and how to install that. Now, depending on the particular operating system that you're using, whether it's Windows or Linux or Mac, and depending on the version of the Excel that you have, you would probably need to figure out how to get that solver installed. That is fairly an easy process to do. You just need to search on any search engine Google, for example, with the information for installing Solver Add-ins to Excel with your version number for Excel and that will give you the step-by-step methods to get the solver added into your Excel. Here, for example, I have given a screenshot of what comes up when you search for Excel 2016. Here you can see that there are options for downloading it for Windows, Mac, and Android. You can follow these basic steps in order to get this Solver Add-in installed onto your excel spreadsheet so that you can solve this type of optimization problems in Excel. I'm going to show you how to do that for Excel 2016. That's the version that I have on my machine, and you can again follow these steps if you have the same version. Normally doesn't change much from version to version, or you can just do a search with your specific operating system and Excel version and see what are the steps. There should be more or less similar and you need to take these steps in order to get it installed. Open the Excel spreadsheet and select the Insert Tab. Here you would find My Add-ins, and from there you would select, Manage Other Add-ins. This will give you a list of available Add-ins. On the left-hand side, select Add-ins, and from the list, you should select Solver Add-In. In the bottom, you will find the Manage Box, select Excel Add-ins, and select Go. This is going to give you the list of available Add-in, select Solver Add-in, and click on "Okay". Then in the Data Tab, when you click on it, you would find the option for Analyze, and indeed, you would find Solver Tool. When you click on "Solver", it will launch this optimization tool that we can now use to solve optimization problems in the excel sheet. Here is again, just a quick recap of the various steps that you can refer to. If you need to pause here and look at the steps for installing solver in Excel. Once we have been able to install it, we can now start using this software to solve optimization problems. In the next video, we're going to take a look at some of these.
