ADVANTAGES OF ELECTRONIC DATA PROCESSING

Electronic data processing systems are built to boost productivity and to improve the quality of work. They achieve these goals in several ways.

1. Speed = Since a computer is an electronic device, it operates as the speed of electric flow which is measured in billionths and trillionths of a second. It is faster than any other machine designed to do similar work. At such speeds, a computer can solve in less than a minute problems that would take at least ten hours on a punched card data processing system.

2. Accuracy= High speed processing by computers is accompanied by high-accuracy results. The electronic circuitry of computers is such that, when the machines are programmed correctly and when relatively assured. No other system can operate with as much accuracy as the electronic system.

A computer can be considered as 100% accurate. Checking circuits are built directly into the computer, so that computer errors that are undetected are extremely rare. Because of the speed and accuracy, computer systems are capable of processing large amounts of data more cheaply than if manual methods are used.

3. Automatic Operation = An electronic computer can carry out a sequence of many data processing operations without human intervention. The various operations are executed automatically by way of a stored computer program.

4.Decision Making capability= A computer can perform certain decision instructions automatically. Here a decision consist of two steps.

a. Determining whether a certain statement is true or false.
b. Based on the result, choosing one or the other course of action out of of alternatives included in the computer program.

5. Compact Storage= Electronic data processing systems have the ability to store large amounts of data in a compact ans easily retrievable form.

6. Discipline it Imposses= To solve a problem with a computer you must, first, understand the problem, and second, program the computer to give you the right answers. Understanding a problem is one thing, but understanding it to depth of detail and insight required to program the computer is a completely different matters.

ELECTRONIC DATA PROCESSING

There are different types of data processing systems and each performs one or more required operation(s) on data by means of various devices. When a machine performs most of the required operation, the system is called an automatic data processing (ADP) system. More particularly, when that machine is an electronic digital computer, the system is described as an electronic data processing (EDP) system or simply as a computer system.

In the broadest terms, an electronic data processing consist of ; hardware, software, and people ware.

In electronic data processing, a user does not have to deal directly with the physical devices( hardware of the EDP system. Instead a special service programs, stored in the computer memory, provide an interface between the user and the equipment . These programs, called systems software, simply the task of the programmer and. the applications software control the use of the hardware.