Hi all:

I have designed a spreadsheet that determines incremental risk scores
for a series of budget cut scenarios (3, 5 ,10% by business unit.) I
am now attempting to select the optimal combination based on the amount
my manager wants to cut (Thinking of this in terms of portfolio weights
may not be optimal because each business unit exhibits significant
non-linearity.)

I have put together several matrices. The first matrix has the
marginal risk score for each incremental cut category by business unit
(I use marginal because it normalizes the different increment sizes and
the scores by unit are non-linear). I have rankings based on % cut
(column ranking) and rankings based on overall marginal risk score. I
also have a matrix of flags that flip to true if that particular
business unit/cut combination has been selected for the priority list.

So it is a combination problem. I believe the criteria to be as
follows:
1. Select max score if:
a. score has not been selected before. (flag=0)
b. lower percent cut for that business unit has already
occurred. (Flag (Column-1) =0). ##This is the one I am
struggling with. That is, a five percent selection cannot occur before
a three percent has occurred. Some scenarios are not evaluated at the
three percent level. Some only at ten. It is inconsistent.##

Do until budget cut amount is met.

The result should either be a matrix of final ranking, or a prioritized
list.

I am not the best at combination problems, and I know some of you love
them, so any help is appreciated.

bonefish