Grouping all values based on a specific Minimum

Hello,

Not sure how to word this to be completely clear, but here goes:

I am analyizing a breakdown of cost bids for several different vendors where Manufacturing is the most important data. Here are the different cost values reviewed:
(For Vendor1) Plate cost, Mfg Cost, Paper Cost, (For Vendor2) Plate Cost, Mfg Cost, Paper, (etc.)

I would like to have a column that provides the min pricing based on lowest Mfg Cost. The simple part is getting the minimum for manufacturing based on the Min formula =MIN(J5,Q5,X5,AE5,AL5,AS5,AZ5,BG5,BN5...).

The hard part is how can I then have the paper and plate cost for that vendor with the lowest manufacturing cost be also brought into the lowest cost pricing column? This can be done manually, but unfortunately do to changes in pricing from vendor to vendor, it will keep changing in the future.

I hope this is clear. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Award.

Your setup makes it a little tricky, multiple venders in the same row but here's the formula I came up with....

1. Not sure why there are 7 columns between fields. I assume there are other catagories besides the 3 you mentioned. I assume that the Plate cost is just to the left of the manf cost and that paper cost is to the right.

For Manf cost;

Please Login or Register  to view this content.

For paper cost;

Please Login or Register  to view this content.

Is that what you are looking for?

ChemistB

That worked perfectly! Thanks a bunch. I hate to ask this, but I would love to be able to understand this enough to continue using it in the future. Would you mind breaking this down to help me understand it better? As in, what does the 5:5 refer (is that row?), then the 1, then back to 5:5, 0?

I assume the -1 and +1 refer the box to the left or right, so if I needed to include any other fields beyond the initial, I would need to do +2 or -2, etc.

You are correct on there being add'l fields. There are 7, but the others are analysis based on those 3 fileds.

One other thing I just thought of: what would happen if I have multiple vendors with the same MFG cost, but different paper, plate, etc cost? Would this produce an error?

Hi Eldwardo,
Not sure why it would look for values other than the ones listed in your MIN list (J5,Q5,X5,AE5). In your MATCH function, are you including 0 as the 3rd argument e.g. MATCH(MIN(J5,Q5,X5,AE5),5:5,0)?
Is it picking numbers at random or just slightly off by a column? Can you upload an example?