The fourth meeting of the Audit Review Committee was held at the Holiday Inn Select -
Opryland / Airport in Nashville, TN.

Bill VerBoort chaired the meeting and the following persons attended as Committee participants:

Mark Witherspoon, National DHIA representative, was absent. Paul Miller and Michael Rector attended the meeting as non-Committee representatives from National DHIA and Quality Certification Services. Michael was appointed to write the minutes.

The Minutes from the October 18, 2000 meeting were amended to remove an item from the list of proposed revisions to the field service manual and place it as a separate statement. The Minutes were approved as amended.

Michael Rector reviewed the revisions made to the CDCB Auditing Guidelines for Field Services manual. The revisions were approved as written.

Michael reviewed the revisions made to the CDCB Auditing Guidelines for Laboratories manual. The Committee recommended that some of the titles be reworded to provide more appropriate descriptions. The revisions were approved pending the title corrections.

The Committee also recommended that section titles and subtitles be numbered to make identification easier during discussions and revisions.

As Chairman of the Audit Review Committee, Bill VerBoort expressed concerns in several key areas and provided materials to initiate discussion. The topics covered were:

1. Outlier data - Ryan Starkenburg reviewed Holstein Associations plan to label extreme test day data. The Committee discussed available options and passed a motion to send the topic to the Advisory Committees for their recommendations in handling this type of data.

2. Labeling of supervision in labor efficient records (LER) and electronic testing procedures - The Committee acknowledged the need to investigate the current procedures and agreed to send the topic to the Processing Center Advisory Committee for discussion. Ryan Starkenburg agreed to explore the matter with the processing centers.

3. Use of non-ICAR approved meters - Paul Miller reviewed the ICAR guidelines and summarized recent ICAR papers describing the use of less accurate meters on a more frequent basis. He also noted that there were several meters in use that were not ICAR approved.

The Committee approved a motion encouraging Paul to proceed with the development of an approval mechanism and to include meter manufacturers, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and other interested countries in the process.

The Committee also suggested that this topic be included on the Field Service Advisory Committee agenda.

4. Approval of milk meter trials - Bill provided an update on the portable, electronic meter being manufactured by Tru-Test and acknowledged that California DHIA was participating in a feasibility study with Tru-Test.

The Committee discussed the issue and passed a motion recommending that the auditor be authorized to review meter testing trials and approve or disapprove the submission of the resulting data into the AIPL database. There was one dissenting vote.

Michael Rector reviewed the draft agendas for the Field Service and Laboratory Advisory Committee meetings scheduled for July, 2001.

The Committee discussed the timetable for CDCB standards revision and passed the following motion:

1. That the Advisory Committees meeting during the summer months,

2. That the Advisory Committee recommendations for CDCB standards revision be provided to the Audit Review Committee, AgSource Cooperative / CRI, California DHIA, and National DHIA for review by early fall,

3. That the Advisory Committee recommendations and dairy records industry feedback be discussed by the Audit Review Committee during their fall meeting and consolidated into revision recommendations for the fall CDCB meeting,

4. That the CDCB approve or disapprove the ARC recommendations at their fall meetings, and

5. That the revisions be introduced and implemented during the next series of summer Advisory Committee meetings.

An Executive Session was called and the Committee discussed a possible violation of the CDCB guidelines. The auditor was instructed to investigate the matter and report the findings to the Committee.

The meeting was adjourned.

Respectfully Submitted,
Michael Rector
QCS President

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