Create an order list based on configuration 'recipes' in Excel 2010

Question

I have been creating a large-ish list of mechanical devices and the parts required to assemble them. Basically what I have are three worksheets.
One with all orderable parts (e.g. screws, nuts, bolts) and their order quantities,
one worksheet with the amounts and types of parts required to build specific devices (E.g. a widget needs 3 screws, 0 nuts and 4 bolts)
and one summary sheet where one is supposed to enter which devices one wants to build.

Since each of parts aren't orderable in single quantities, but rather in larger packages (e.g. 500 screws, 100 bolts, etc.), I need some solution to read the 'to be built'-sheet, lookup all gadgets, add the respective parts needed and create a list of how many boxes of each parts I need.

I have tried somehow doing it via vlookup, but the queries just boggled my mind and I am inexperienced with VBA. Is there an easy solution I am overlooking? Thank you very much.

Edit

Sample Data below:

This is the Recipe list of the devices

Device Name    Part 1  Amount 1    Part 2  Amount 2    Part 3  Amount 3    Price
Gadget         Screws   20         Nuts     40         Bolts    12         6,14 €
Widget         Screws   10         Bolts    12         Washers  100        2,02 €
Thingie        Nuts     11         Washers  122        Bolts    14         2,93 €

This is the parts list and order size

Part    Order-size Price   Price per Unit
Screws    500       20 €        0,040 €
Nuts      100       12 €        0,120 €
Bolts     200        9 €        0,045 €
Washers  1000       10 €        0,010 €

This is the Order list for the devices

Item    Amount
Gadget    14
Widget    22
Thingie  121

And now I would like to have a table created (or a report, or a text file or just any kind of summarized output) that looks like this:

these numbers are now made up

Parts to be ordered     Amount of packages    Price
Screws                      1                   20€
Nuts                        3                   36€
Bolts                       2                   18€
Washers                     5                   50€

I don't have any useful code to share, since I played around with vlookups inside of vlookups and all I got was a headache...

Answer 1

First, make an intermediate step by adding columns to the order list (this pastes nicely to Excel with a space deliminter, sorry about the formatting here). You may wish to consider formatting the Recipe tab differently, but I have used what you have):

Item    Amount  Screws  Bolts   Nuts    Washers
Gadget  14  280 168 560 0
Widget  22  220 264 0   2200
Thingie 121 0   1694    1331    14762

Second, use the following formula for the formula under "screws" and drag down/over:

   =$B2*(SUMIFS(recipe!$C:$C,recipe!$B:$B,order!C$1,recipe!$A:$A,order!$A2)+SUMIFS(recipe!$E:$E,recipe!$D:$D,order!C$1,recipe!$A:$A,order!$A2)+SUMIFS(recipe!$G:$G,recipe!$F:$F,order!C$1,recipe!$A:$A,order!$A2))

This calculates a SUMIFS based on the Item as well as the PartType from your recipe list. Because you have three columns of parts you need to check on your Recipe tab you need to have essentially the same formula repeated 3x. This is multiplied by the total numbers of those parts to give you the total number of each basic part for each item. It would be 1/3 as much formula text if each Item/basicPart had its own row entry.

Now that you have the total quantity of each basic part for each Item calculated, you need to write the Report formula to give you the amount of packages. I've added an intermediate total # required column to make this more clear.

Parts to be ordered total # required    Amount of packages  Price
Screws  500 1   20 €
Nuts    1891    19  228 €
Bolts   2126    11  99 €
Washers 16962   17  170 €

To sum the total number of each part, you can either just manually set the formula as =sum(order!C:C) as appropriate based on which column each is, or use the following formula:

=SUM(OFFSET(order!B:B,0,MATCH(A2,order!$C$1:$F$1,FALSE)))

This finds the matching column on the order tab built above and sums it. To reduce complexity you could hardcode this. However, add this to cell Reports!B2 and drag down.

Finally, use the following formulas to get the Amount of Packages (entered in Reports!C2):

=ROUNDUP(B2/VLOOKUP(A2,ordersize!A:B,2,FALSE),0)

and then get your total cost (entered in Reports!D2):

=C2*VLOOKUP(A2,ordersize!A:C,3,FALSE)

You may have to change some of the formulas based on the sheet names I used.

---

I think it is worth noting that you probably could restructure this data in such a way that a pivot table gives you all the output you need with minimal Excel formulas. So, the "easy solution" is learn how pivot tables work and determine how best to restructure your information (and what elements can be changed) and allow yourself to avoid some of the more complicated Excel formula work.