The basic requirements of any automated system for collecting and processing data for a diary herd are that:-

- it must present the information required for day-to-day management in an easy and readily available form.

- it will be justified only if the system provides useful management data that would be more costly to produce in other ways or be impractical to obtain manually

- it should be built from a simple base with add-on units to a complete system, to allow for various sizes of herd, levels of technical development and cost. (Inputs could be either from manual records or automatic recorders)

- it should provide information on a visual display unit, with lists printed when required

- accurate identification is essential especially if automatic identification is used

- it should be developed to a fully computerized farm recording system.