Ok, sorry to all if I've put this in the wrong forum (mods please move if it'd be better elsewhere), but I'm in need of a little bit of programming/data sorting help cos I'm hopeless when it comes to that sort of thing.
And my Masters kind of depends on it

Basically, I'm modelling a truck-based distribution network in Simul8, which is a discrete event environment. Don't worry if you've never heard of it, it's kind of incidental. I've got a load of (Excel) order data which shows orders (just a number) from various postcodes, sorted by date; for example:

Date PostCode Qty
03/05/05 BD 2

The various postcodes are sorted into about 20 circular routes, so that each route has a fixed progression of postcodes which it drives. Since I want to be able to easily change the routes, I've come up with a matrix which contains postcodes in the correct order, organised into the routes, e.g.

Rte/PC 1 2 3 4 5 6
18 BD PQ AB WFT GG XY
19 GF BI ASL ET QP ETC

The problem is, of course, that not every postcode orders every day. But if one does it must be supplied which means the intermediate postcodes must be driven. So what I'm trying to do is basically thin down my order data into a realistic 'journey planner', based on the routes, which will tell my Simul8 stuff which postcodes to process. The idea is that it'll run through each day's orders, look at the routes, and assign each order to the appropriate route. Ultimately, I want it to come up with a table showing the best way of fulfilling that day's orders with the minimum of postcode processing. Here's an example of the format:

Route RouteCount PCDriveTime
18 1 27
18 2 5
18 3 16
19 1 5
19 2 38

OK, now I know that's a lot of stuff to absorb, but basically I'm asking if anyone has any suggestions for macros or visual logic or knows any Excel tricks to do this. The tricky part here is that I want to be able to change the routes - otherwise I could just do it manually Thanks in advance, any suggestions would be most helpful!!