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Counties Process
Complete Using Laptops
PAT TORETTI
DRPC ARIS Adm.
Pennsylvania DHIA’s program
for putting laptops in the hands of
its technidsns is paying trig divi
dends. now that a large majority of
field employees have mastered die
program. “About 130 of 175 tech
nicians are now released to trans
mit data to the DHIA processing
center,” says Dean Amick, field
services director. “For February,
the first month in which we have
good comparisons on stats for
herds sent either electronically or
under the old manual system, our
turn-around time was 4 days from
date of test to die mail for herds
prepared on paper, versus only 2.9
days for the electronically submit
ted herds. Owing to some changes
in the lab and even more techni
cians coming on-line, the numbers
for the first week of March lode
even better; about 3.5 days to ship
for paper herds, and only 2.5 days
for electronic transmission,” says
Amick. Beth Kelchner, a Senior
Technician from Lycoming Coun
ty, relates a now common experi
ence: “I tested a herd Friday night
and Saturday, sent the transmis
lnsist on Chore-Time
and get higher production with lower cost and less maintenance.
C-2 feeder H-2 feeder H-2 feeder adult turkey
for broilers for broilers for turkeys feeder with plastic pan
nipples
FOCUS
skm and samples on Saturday. The
dairyman called me to tell me his
papers were in his mailbox on
Tuesday, he was so pleased.”
Jim Boyer, DRPC manager for
Pa DHIA agrees. “The turnaround
time statistics are very good.
Quick return has always been an
important dimension rtf our busi
ness. Although we’ve always en
joyed big advantages over other
DHIAs where the lab tests are
done one place and processing is
done somewhere else, it’s quite an
achievement to be able to knock a
full day off turnaround time.”
Other advantages cited by Boy
er include the reduction in errors
and records correction expected at
the outset of the project. “Overall,
we’ve been able to reduce the
number of herds with errors by
about a third for those that are pre
pared on laptops.
That’s still conservative when
you consider that until very re
cently we weren’t enforcing all
the data edits on PC’s, in order to
give technicians time to adjust
When die folks in the field are
more comfortable with the pro
gram and die edits get more string
ent we’re looking to double or tri
ple that improvement.”
FLEX-AUGER*
Northeast Agri Systems, Inc.
Flyway Business Park
139 A West Airport Road
Lititz, PA 17543
The program is rapidly gaining
momentum. For February, the first
month in which full Statistics on
the program were available, about
2,5000 f the 3,800 herds processed
were sent electronically. While
that is neatly two thirds of all
herds processed. Dean Amick sees
a time when only a tiny fraction of
herds will actually be sent on pa
per. “Some owner sampler herds,
new herds or herds witih special
problems may come in that way,
but the future is really already
here. It’s quite a change from the
days back in 1957 when we first
computerized and our turnaround
time went from same day to ‘only’
30 days. I guess the computer
guys are 'finally catching up with
the field.”
“Already we’ve had counties
that have processed completely on
laptops for several months. York
was the first to go all electronic,
and has been submitting herds that
way for about S months now. The
region manager f6r that area, Dave
Shenk, deserves a lot of credit for
pushing the program.”
The implementation of PC’s in
the field has not been without
some adjustments, DHIA staffers
note. A help desk- to support
DHIA field employees throughout
the state had to be established. The
DHIA laboratory, long accustom
ed to running ahead of the data en
try operation, has had to make
some changes. And the data entry
staff itself, from a high of nine
employees a decade ago, has fal
len to only two. I%e biggest
changes, of course, have come for
DHIA’s field technicians. “That’s
been the bright spot of the whole
thing for me,” says Boyer. “We’ve
taken our time with this to insure
as much as possible that the laptop
program was a technicians pro-
swine
feeding
STORE HOURS: Mon.-Fil. 7:30 to 4:30
Sot. 8:00 to Noon
24 Hr. 7 Do/ Repair Service
Ijncaalar Farming, Saturday, March 12, 1994-A29
gram rather than a processing cen
ter program. We’ve had a small
core of technicians, Anne Brooks
in Centre County, Ron Morgan in
Mifflin, and Arlen Crider in
Franklin who’ve been working
closely with us for almost two
years. Then we involved a larger
pilot group that’s refiied die pro
gram further over die last year or
so. They pretty much designed
-their own Bamsheet program.
And that group hasn’t been shy
about asking for changes. Many of
our technicians have a surprising
amount of computer experience,
and many more have a genuine
aptitude for the work. Still, it’s
been a big adjustment. Almost a
culture change. They’ve done an
outstanding job.”
Caren Dodd of Erie County ad
mits that in the beginning there
was some extra work, and a few
adjustments to make, but overall is
quite pleased with the program.
“AP herds really appreciate get
ting their factored milk weights on
test day. And the computer adds
some prestige to the job.”
What’s next for the DHIA lap
top program? “We wanted to con
centrate most heavily on the initial
mining for the Bamsheet pro
gram,” Amick says. “But now that
twrhnidanii are comfortable with
the program, we’re ready to really
take off. The simple test day re
porting features in the Bamsheet,
like milkweight calculations and
data editing, will be vastly im
proved by die addition of full ca
pability for on-farm reporting in
the next few months. We’ll be
concentrating on hammering out
the last details of data entry, and
moving technicians toward more
V 1
cage
syetems
and more realtime reporting at our
Spring Conferences, which itart at
the end of this month.”
Average Farm Feed
Costs For Handy
Reference
To help farmers across the state
to have handy reference of com
modity input costs in their feeding
operations for DHIA record sheets
or to develop livestock feed cost
data, here’s this week’s average
costs of various ingredients as
compiled from regional reports
across the state of Pennsylvania.
Remember these are averages so
you will need to adjust your figures
up or down according to your loca- 1
tion and the quality of your crop.
Com, No. 2y-3.11 bu.s.S7cwL
Wheat, No. 2 - 3.53 bu. 5.89
CWL
Barley, No. 3 - 2,49 bu. 5.33
cwt
Oats, No. 2 -1.71 bu. 5.34 cwt
Soybeans, No. 1 -6.65 bu. 11.10
cwt
Ear Com • old 80.00 ton 4.51
cwt
Ear Com - new 90.10 ton 4.51.
Alfalfa Hay - 113.25 ton 5.66
cwt
Mixed Hay - 111.00 ton 5.55
cwt
Timothy Hay - 108.75 ton 5.44
cwt
ULTRAFLO*
for layers, pullets &
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authorized
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3B Rri
1-800-673-2580
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Ph: (717) 569-2702