This is a mathematical problem that the Greeks tried to solve over 2000 years
ago. Probably the Chineese tried to solve even earlier. It is a type of
packing problem. A packing problem is a problem where the cashier at a
suppermarket puts all your groceies into bags and tries to use the least
number of bags and balance the weight between the bags.

For your problem you would need a macro. And in some cases would need to
use multiple crews to arive at the proper results. The problem is if you
don't have a exact fit which crew do you use. You need to supply more
information. You would need to include some cost information. If Forman get
paid more than a laborer you want the select crew(s) to have the minimum
number of each type workers and minimize cost. There also may be other
factors like you have less operators than laborers so you don't want to have
the exact amount of operators but you can have extra laborers.


Then you mighrt want to include rules that you can iide crews. By the way
the greeks never had an algorithm that always worked.

"Alireza Nejad" wrote:

Hello,

I have a huge spread sheet of different crews for my estimating program
which i have attached a sample of it, i want to be able to put the number of
the crew members in the exact kind of form with blank quantities, and the
name of the crew pops up, i want to say: i need 4 forman,7 labors,3 labor
formans and.... and when i enter i want to see the name of the crew, please
help me, thanks

Forman Laborer Mason Mason Forman Operator Teamster
crew 1 1 3 2 1 5 4
crew 2 4 6 7 2 3 3
crew 3 2 3 6 2 4 4
crew 4 4 6 5 2 9 5
crew 5 5 7 7 2 6 7
crew 6 2 4 5 2 8 6
crew 7 4 5 6 1 8 7
crew 8 3 6 7 3 5 8
crew 9 4 4 8 5 9 9
crew 10 5 9 4 2 3 0
crew 11 2 4 3 1 9 9