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Basically, the problem is trying to calculate the cheapest method of ordering items from our suppliers.

We believe the main factors involved are supplier item price, stock qty and delivery rates.

We have come up with a solution that works but we aren't sure whether it's robust and was wondering if any natural mathematician could come up with a better solution.

The factors:

Item Weight 12 Kg  Supplier A Unit Price: 10 Stock: 5 Delivery: 1Unit=5 5U=10 10+=15  Supplier B Unit Price: 11 Stock: 3 Delivery: 1Unit=5 10+=15  Supplier C Unit Price: 10 Stock: 2 Delivery: 1Unit=5 5U=10 10+=15  Supplier D Unit Price: 9 Stock: 1 Delivery: 1Unit=5 5U=10 10+=15 

The problems:

1. What is the cheapest method to get 1 unit? 2. What is cheapest method to get 5 units? 3. What is the cheapest method to get 10 units? 

For now, I don't want to write in our solution because it might put you on the wrong path, but I'm always on StackOverflow, so will be around.

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I think that the only way is to use brute-force to calculate the price based on given quantity for each supplier (this would result in a list such as (supp=1, price=5; supp=2, price =5; supp=3,price=12,etc.), then find the list of minimum price values then pick one of the suppliers (at random?) from this list.

If the range of quantities were bounded, say your min order quantity is 1 and max order quantity is 1000, a matrix could be built and searched instead of calculating the data for each query.

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    @Christian, yes of course this is possible, but that would be a business decision.2011-10-12