Minutes of the
Processing Center Advisory Committee Conference Call
August 19, 2002
The sixth meeting of the
Processing Center Advisory Committee was held via conference call at noon
EST. Ken Crandall, DHI-Provo,
chaired the meeting and the following persons attended as
participants:
Mary Margaret Steele,
DRMS
The Minutes of the September 24, 2001 meeting were approved with one amendment to the title line.
During the reading of the
Minutes, Jerry Steuernagel confirmed that there were no significant problems
with the Standard Transfer Formats or Test Herd programs. He also confirmed that AIPL was flagging
Test Herd variables that were outside of the established
ranges.
Ken Crandall noted that
there had been no letter sent to the processing centers requesting that the
formulas for energy corrected milk (ECM) and cheese yield (CY) be revised to use
true protein values instead of crude protein values. However, AgriTech Analytics, AgSource
Cooperative / CRI, and DHI-Provo confirmed that they had already made the change
and DRMS said they would make the change in the near
future.
Jerry Steuernagel questioned
the need for a third identification field for barn name entry. AgSource Cooperative / CRI confirmed
that they needed three fields for identification. The rest of the Committee agreed that
two identification fields were adequate for their needs but that some rewording
of the core variable definitions may clarify the issue. Jerry agreed to draft a
revision.
Michael Rector relayed
questions regarding the marking of herds with non-certified meters and each
processing center represented confirmed that they had a place to code records in
this manner.
Michael also expressed the
need for accessing field service data directly from the processing centers. The Committee agreed to try and
accommodate the request and Michael agreed to send a detailed list of data
needed to each processing center.
The Committee discussed the
proposed AIPL contract for young stock, reproductive, and health data. Jody Pinter agreed to follow up on
issues language to decrease the possibility of patent
problems.
Jody Pinter questioned the
necessity of maintaining the Cow and Herd Profiles and Paul Miller confirmed
that the profiles were still a requirement in the Uniform Data Collection
Procedures. The Committee
recommended that the UDCP be revised to exclude the
profiles.
Michael Rector discussed
plans for combining the Field Service and Laboratory Advisory Committee meetings
and asked the Committee if they would like to be included also. The Committee agreed that they sometimes
needed face-to-face contact with AIPL personnel and declined the offer to
participate in a multi-committee meeting.
They also noted that most other issues can be resolved via conference
calls.
The Committee did not set a
date or location for the next meeting and the meeting was
adjourned.
Respectfully Submitted,
QCS President