In this set of three problem vignettes, the fictional manufacturing company BizCo has hired the reader for their skills in data analysis. Each vignette provides a scenario that BizCo is working through—evaluating product mix, comparing vender costs, and assessing expansion proposals—alongside an Excel spreadsheet of relevant data. Students will use Excel Solver for data analysis to address the problems and questions confronting BizCo in each scenario.

Accompanying the problem set are instructional video supplements produced by the authors with Darden Video Production.

This set of optimization problems is part of a three-part set of data analysis exercises. It may be used independently or in conjunction with two other exercise sets: "PivotTable Practice Problems" (UVA-QA-0985) and "Decision Tree Practice Problems" (UVA-QA-0986).