Advantages of spreadsheets

Advantage Expansion: related example

Ability to recalculate totals If a customer changes their mind and adds new
products changes them or cancels part of the
order it automatically recalculates the cost

What if investigations on different options and qualities or discount

options

Can show graphically in the form of charts and

graphs making the data easier to understand e.g.
comparisons between sales per salesperson or
products

Accurate calculation of commissions which will save staff time from

salesmen making enquiries and increase
efficiency as they will concentrate their time of
selling.

1. What is meant by simulation modelling and give the advantages and disadvantages of
simulation modelling

It is the use of a program to predict the behaviour of a real life system.

Advantages are it is;

Cheaper as do not have to physically destroy cars.
Safer as nobody is really hurt
Can explore different scenarios more easily
Disadvantages
They can never cover all eventualities;
Model could oversimplify the situation and not be accurate enough
Errors in formulas will spoil accuracy

2. A garage wants to use a spreadsheet to give quotations for work and calculate
staff wages.
Describe give the advantages and disadvantages using a spreadsheet for these tasks.

NOTE MUST RELATE TP THE SPECIFIC TASKS MENTION DO NOT GIVE GENERAL
ANSWERS and must mention advantages and disadvantages

ADV
Accurate calculations of quotes so customers dont get annoyed if given wrong amount.
Can vary content of quotes if have different extras involved
Can investigate the impact on costs if there is a wage increase.
Can display the staff wages as a graph to see who is the highest paid in case
redundancies are needed.
Dis
Smaller garages usually only have one computer. Over reliance if the computer goes
down in the garage they cannot operate.
Costly to install and maintain equipment and train staff to use it which might be
difficult for a smaller garage
The garage may not have a technician but one employee might have been on the
training courses to use it. If the trained member of staff leaves it takes time and
money to retain someone else.
If the manager sets up the formulas wrong or factors such as VAT is changed and
the formulas are not changed then the staff wages or quotations could be wrong.

Weather forecasting and simulation modelling. (Flight simulation, crash test dummies)
Simulation modelling means using a computer program and mathematical
formulas to imitate a real situation. (they look at what if scenarios)

How are they created

Many measurements on temperature air pressure humidly wind speed etc ate collected
by land stations,weather ships, weather balloon and weather planes and satellite
Weather observation are recorded against the actual weather that happened.
Mathematical model using equations is used to predict if these weather features
happen again what the weather will be like.
Needs super computers with parallel processors to to analyse the weather data
Takes about 1 haur of super fast processors to produce a 6 day forecast

Enables predictions to be made in areas e,g, path of a hurricane

which may be dangerous to humans or very
expensive to risk
Do what if investigations on things What if the jet stream moves what will
impossible to investigate in real life.Some it affect the weather?
situations cannot be performed in real life for
testing purposes
Make predictive trends Easier to study long e.g. Is global warming happening?
term affects by speeding up time scale
Disadvantages of Simulation Models
Prediction only as accurate as the rules or Some things hard to predict accurately and so
data entered hard to simulate such as very long range
weather forecasts (Bar b Q Summer).
Powerful Expensive computer hardware
needed to run the simulations
GIGO if original data wrong the model will
be wrong
SPREADSHEET QUESTIONS

Where and What purpose? Why? What did you want this data
formula? for?
Sum

Average/Countif

MAX MIN

Single if

Multiple if

Date

Round

Macro and purpose WHAT, WHERE, WHY?

I recorded a PRINT macro which defined the area to be printed out. This are was the order form/
membershipform/invoice It speeded up the printing of ..

I created a NAVIGATION macro on the main startup menu and on each of the sheets. This gave a
list of choices of sheets and view graph or go to data tables. It.enabled me to select the sheet and
load it quickly it also allowed me to return to the main menu when I wanted to navigate easily
between the sheets.
Graph and purpose WHAT, WHERE, WHY?

I created a graph on sheet .. screenshot ? page ?.

This was a graph which showed the ..
It made it easier to see the trend ..
I will use this graph in my annual management report.

Two methods of simplifying data entry different benefit of each WHAT, WHERE, WHY?

Drop down list

List boxes select data from a predefined list which reduces the chance of data entry errors

Tick Box
Is an option box is suitable for a boolean true or false situations A click in the box means yes or true
a box left empty means no or false and this increases efficiency by saving time when making a
selection
Spinners
Uses a button to let you input a value from within a set range e.g. 1 to 20. If used in a model e.g
different price selection you can see the outcome instantly

OTHER ADVANCED PROCESSES

Where What Why/advantage

Page/screenshot
SORT It was faster to find the . if the data
was in order when I was using the sorted list
for ...

SEARCH I select the data which matched the criteria

because I wanted to use this data to
.

VALIDATION Type I put on a range check on room number

Range check because there is only 20 rooms in the hotel
Between 1 I created an error message you can see on
and 20 page . Which said

Vlookup =vlookup( cell, I used a vlookup to look p the data in celll which
range, was about the . This match the data in
column) the table of . And looked up the ..in the
second column and transferred the data to
cell..
Adv This made it faster to enter the data and it
was easier to update the values by simply
changing the data in the table.