Hi Excel Guru's

I do not know how to get following problem solved by using the exact xls formula:

We have customers which can configure their goods. Most configurations are already available, but the customer can request a new configuration of the goods.
The easiest way for me is to lookup *the most similar existing product* for their configuration.

And here comes the problem:
let's say we have a product configured as
variable 1 = characteristic A
variable 2 = characteristic B
variable 3 = characteristic C
variable 4 = characteristic D

and another one as
variable 1 = characteristic E
variable 2 = characteristic F
variable 3 = characteristic G
variable 4 = characteristic H

and so on.

When I get a new customer request as
variable 1 = characteristic E
variable 2 = characteristic B
variable 3 = characteristic C
variable 4 = characteristic D
and I start filtering the usual way on eg variable 1 = E, then it looks as if the other characteristics are not available, only F, G, H.
But I want to find the closest available product configuration to the new need of a customer (thus A, B, C, D).

So how can a filter in xls be defined which does this?

Ebru