How do i find the optimum variable values to maximise a Function?

Say, I have a fucntion y given by

y = au+bv+zw where u,v and w are variables.

How do i find the values of variables such that maximum value of y is obtained? I have a range of values for the variables. I wanna know which variable should be given more importance.

Thank you

Answer 1

[Jan]

y = au+bv+zw is maximal, if all u,v,w are maximal, if a,b,z are positive. For negative parameters, use the minimal allowed value.

Something is missing. Maybe the sum u+v+w is limited?

[Lokesh Sathyanarayana]

Yes, sorry about that. Yeah something like that. The sum or the product is limited. How do i proceed then?

[Alan Weiss]

Perhaps you have a linear programming problem. See linprog and the linear programming documentation.

Alan Weiss

MATLAB mathematical toolbox documentation