Consider the Reliable Construction Co. bidding problem discussed in Section 15.2.

The spreadsheet model is available at www.mhhe.com/Hillier7e. The parameter analysis report generated in Section 15.7 (see Figure 15.43)

for this problem suggests that $5.4 million is the best bid, but this table only considered bids that were a multiple of

$0.2 million.

a. Refine the search by generating a parameter analysis report for this bidding problem that considers all bids between $5.2 million and $5.6 million in multiples of $0.05 million.

b. Use the Solver in Analytic Solver to search for the bid that maximizes Reliable Construction Co.’s mean profit. Assume that the bid may be any value between $4.8 million and $5.8 million.