32nd Meeting of the Task Force on CSITC

Wednesday, 28 September 2022

In-person – Virtual

10:00 am to 12:30 pm (CEST)

The Task Force on Commercial Standardisation of Instrument Testing of Cotton (CSITC) conducted its 32nd meeting on Wednesday, 28 September 2022, in-person and virtual.

Members Present

Dr Marinus (René) van der Sluijs, Principal Consultant, Textile Technical Services, Australia (Chair)
Mr Axel Drieling, Faserinstitut Bremen, Germany
Mr Peter Wakefield, Wakefield Inspection Services and Chairman, Private Sector Advisory Council (PSAC), Taiwan
Mr Darryl Earnest, Deputy Administrator, USDA AMS, USA
Dr Jean Paul Gourlot, CIRAD Persyst, France
Ms Gretchen Deatherage, Director Standardization, USDA- AMS, USA
Prof Iwona Frydrych, Vice President, Gdynia Cotton Association, Poland
Mr Fatih Dogan, Vice President, Mediterranean Textile and Raw materials Exporters Associations, Turkey

Observers

Dr Robert Jiang, ICA, UK
Mr Karsten Froese, BBB/ICA Bremen
Mr Peyman Dehkordi, Uster Technologies, USA
Ms Mona Qaud, Uster Technologies, USA
Dr Stefan Fliescher, Textechno, Germany
Dr Guntram Kugler, Textechno, Germany
Mr Felix Liebhold, Textechno, Germany
Ms Vikki Martin, Cotton Incorporated, USA
Dr Neha Kothari, Cotton Incorporated, USA
Ms Mary Concilia Anchang, FICOTA, Cameroon
Mr A.H. Latif, ARC, Sudan
Dr Bobby Hardin, Texas A&M University, USA
Mr Robert Wakefield, WIS, UK
Mr Terry Townsend, Cotton Analytics, USA

ICAC Secretariat

Mr Kai Hughes, Executive Director
Mr Kanwar Usman, Head of Textiles

Members Not Present

Ms Mariana Carfagnini, Coordinator of the Textile Physical Unit of the Center for Textile Research, Argentina
Mr Ramiro Casoliba, Director Del Centro Intl, Argentina
Mr Gregory Parle, Australian Food and Fibre, Australia
Dr Mohammed Negm, Head of Spinning Research Department, Cotton Research Institute, Egypt
Eng. Mohamed Khalil Khedr, Chairman CATGO – Cotton Arbitration & Testing General Organization, Egypt
Dr Urania Kechagia, Consultant Cotton and Industrial Plants Institute, Greece
Mr Patrick Ilukat, Cotton Development Organization, Uganda
Prof. Suzan Husseini Sanad, Cotton Research Institute, Egypt
Mr Pardeep Kumar, Chairman Cotton Corporation of India, India

The 32nd meeting commenced with welcoming remarks from Mr Kai Hughes and the Chairperson of CSITC, Dr Marinus (René) van der Sluijs.

Agenda Item 1: Adoption of Agenda

As no participants recommended to add any item to agenda, therefore, the agenda for the 32nd meeting of the Task Force on Commercial Standardization of Instrument Testing of Cotton (CSITC) was adopted.

Agenda Item 2: Approval of the Minutes of 31st Meeting held virtually on 18 April 2022

The Chair briefly highlighted the important points of the last meeting and requested that if there were any changes to the contact information of Task Force Members, including their current positions, to please advise us so that these can be updated.

The Task Force approved the minutes of 31st Meeting of the Task Force which was held virtually.

Agenda Item 3: Latest on Round Trial Results and Comparisons by Mr Axel Drieling

Mr Drieling delivered a presentation, ‘CSITC Task Force Contributions,’ which is the most important and regular feature of every meeting of the CSITC Task Force. Mr Drieling shared the latest results and participation in the Round Trials (RTs) and the marketing brochures, then provided background on the Round Trials. He added that every laboratory receives an overall evaluation for all six properties.

Mr Drieling stated that every year, four RTs are conducted and with the third RT for 2022 having recently been completed. In each RT, every sample was tested for 5 days, 6 times per day, totalling 30 tests per sample. Mr Drieling said that six properties — Micronaire, Strength, Upper Half Mean Length, Length Uniformity, Color (Rd and +b) — were analysed for evaluation purposes, four properties — Trash Area, Trash Count, Short Fiber Index and Maturity — were analysed for information only and not for the evaluation of the laboratories.

Mr Drieling noted that the analysis was done by determining the deviation of laboratory/instrument average values from the reference value. The reference value being the average of all the laboratories/instruments after excluding any outliers. For each property, absolute deviation of all four samples was calculated and it was divided by scale value which was based on the USDA AMS reproducibility limits. Overall Evaluation Result (OER) is the average of six properties and the benefit is that OER for a laboratory/instrument is one single value demonstrating how far the laboratory/instrument was deviating from the overall results.

Mr Drieling explained that the deviation between laboratories, which was directly related to the evaluation of combined properties, had been steadily decreasing from 0.5 recorded in 2007. The results in these early years were not as good as new laboratories needed time for improvement. The results had significantly improved since 2011. From 2012, when the number of participants was constant, results had been improving, with variation between the laboratories now down to 0.32. He added that this level was achieved in 2019 and laboratories/instruments have not been able to improve since then, but that this level had been maintained. OER had improved by 35%, meaning that variation between the laboratories/instruments had reduced by 35%. This was also good from a risk perspective and could help to avoid litigation in cotton trading. Mr Drieling said that this was the most significant achievement of CSITC RTs (that deviation between the CSITC inter-laboratories/instruments had reduced by 35%). He added in the first two RTs of 2022, results were relatively higher at 0.35 and 0.36 — but thought that this was not a trend and did not mean that laboratories/instruments were getting worse.

Mr Drieling noted that the best instrument was at 0.15 and usually it was not the same instrument. He stated that previously if a laboratory/instrument strived to be better than 50% of the laboratories participating than less than 0.5 would be a good score. However, currently if an instrument had to be in top 50% of the laboratories then they would need to achieve a score below 0.36, with 25% of the instrument’s median now close to 0.25, meaning that laboratories had improved.

Mr Drieling then explained that, of all six properties for laboratories/instruments, the standard deviation for micronaire had improved from 0.1 in 2007 to 0.7. Similar results had been achieved for strength and length, with strength reduced from 1.4 to 1, meaning there had been an improvement of 40% with length uniformity improving slightly, from 0.8 to 0.7 and the best improvement achieved for color, which improved from 1 to approximately 0.5.

Mr Drieling reiterated there were properties which were not evaluated but the results were shared for information purposes only, enabling laboratories to check their performance. In this case, the coefficient of variation (CV) for trash area has improved from 35% to 25%. Initially there was high variation for Short Fiber Index (SFI), but since 2013, results had improved, probably due the fact that HVI instruments could now be calibrated for SFI.

Mr Drieling also added that after achieving peak participation between 2012 to 2017, the number of participating laboratories had dropped from 80 to 60 and remained at that number since 2018. However, it is possible that additional laboratories were registering but not sharing their results; the number cited was only for laboratories that were providing their results.

Mr Drieling advised that countries with high participation rates included the United States, Brazil, and India with 17, 14 and 13 laboratories respectively. He also mentioned that some countries had already reached the optimum level, such as in Australia where the number of participating laboratories (four) might seem low — but there were only four recognised classing facilities in Australia. He noted that five laboratories from China were also participating in the Round Trials. Moreover, there were countries that do not produce cotton but still participate in the Round Trials such as Italy, Switzerland, Thailand, and Vietnam. Participation was worldwide.

Mr Drieling believed that the vast majority of instruments were providing services to the production/classing/cotton associations and if we include control laboratories, the category accounts for 77% of participating laboratories. Importantly, only 9% laboratories are from the spinning sector.

Lastly, Mr Drieling mentioned the marketing efforts of CSITC. He noted that the abbreviation ‘CSITC’ was a burden, as it was difficult to remember and did not impart a positive message regarding the RTs. He mentioned that for marketing purposes and to attract the textile value chain two previous presentations had been prepared, one prepared for the ITMA-Barcelona in 2019 and the other prepared by Mr Hossein Ghorashi highlighting benefits to spinners. Apart from these presentations, several brochures were developed which can be shared with members. He noted that the brochure for spinners was very detailed and explained quality management for laboratories.

The Chair thanked Mr Drieling for his elaborate presentation and commented that before COVID-19, seventy-seven laboratories were participating, but was now down to only fifty-six, and efforts would be made to bring them back.

The Chair said that in the past, it was considered a great achievement to bring deviation for fiber properties to 0.5. Mr Drieling commented that that milestone had been achieved 10 years ago.

The Chair mentioned that on the second day of the Bremen Conference, he and Mr Drieling would be delivering a presentation on the benefits of CSITC. Dr Jiang commented that to obtain ICA Bremen certification, participation in the CSITC program was a must. Mr Usman mentioned that Brazil and China have their own national systems and RTs and asked who else in the world does. Mr Drieling replied that there were three international RTs — CSITC for HVI, USDA for HVI and ICA Bremen — conducted on an international basis. RTs in Brazil, China, Australia, and other countries cannot be compared because they only include national laboratories.

Agenda item 3: Update on Instrument Testing Interpretation Guidelines by Dr Jean Paul Gourlot

The Chair then requested Dr Jean Paul Gourlot to provide a brief review on the instrument testing interpretation guideline. Dr Gourlot said that the ‘interpretation guide’ explained how to interpret data provided by testing instruments for cotton classification including micronaire, length, strength, color, trash, moisture, spinning consistency index, neps and stickiness. This free guide was released in English, Portuguese and French and is available on the websites of ICAC, ITMF, CSITC and CIRAD. Dr Gourlot thanked Dr Negm for translating the guidelines in Arabic.

Agenda item 4: ITMF’s Progress on International Committee on Cotton Testing Methods (ICCTM)

The Chair then requested Mr Drieling and Ms Mona Qaud to provide an update on ICCTM, which was held the previous day. Mr Drieling indicated that there were few administrative changes and that members of the steering committee were now included in the executive committee. Importantly, in the meeting, spinnability, recycling and traceability were discussed.

Agenda item 5: To holistically review/revamp the role of CSITC

The Chair noted that this was an important agenda item and made a brief presentation highlighting the benefits that CSITC provides to laboratories as well as the advantages that CSITC RTs provide breeders, growers, ginners, traders, and spinners.

The Chair then mentioned the challenges faced by big companies when they set up their own laboratories, including the lack of trained workers, having to develop their own sampling criteria, improper conditioning and calibration, outdated software, and lack of the technical expertise needed to read the reports.

The discussion then turned into ways to increase participation of the spinning sector in CSITC RTs, with challenges including payment and the amount of work they require. The important matter is that spinners might think there is no value in CSITC Round Trials, so efforts must be undertaken to educate them.

Mr Wakefield suggested that cotton agents/merchants could be involved to help promote CSITC because they are in contact with spinning mills every single day, perhaps offering a commission to merchants for every laboratory they get to join. The Chair suggested that countries where the fee is an issue, such as Indonesia, Japan, Vietnam, and Korea, contact should be made with their respective spinning associations and give them a presentation on the benefits of RTs.

Mr Usman asked Mr Wakefield if as the Chair of Private Sector Advisory Council (PSAC) that free trials to promote CSITC could be offered with Mr Hughes stating that he would look for funds in the ICAC budget. Mr Earnest mentioned that there was a need to repurpose, rebrand, readvertise, remarket, and also rename the CSITC but that there would be a cost involved. USDA never operated this program without a loss, and those losses have been increasing over the last decade, potentially mandating an increase in the fee that participants were charged.

It was discussed that due to high inflation, the cost for operating Round Trial had increased tremendously whilst price for participation in the Round Trial had not been increased for some time and all three organizations operating this program i.e., ICAC, Faserinstitut Bremen and USDA had been incurring losses. Mr. Hughes suggested that in order to mitigate some of the costs specially for USDA, that initially the price per RT should be increased by $50 i.e., $200 per annum and later on to work out the costing in detail with Mr. Drieling and Mr. Earnest and to possibly further increase the price per RT to make this program self-sustainable. The Chair noted that this will have to be considered and that Mr Hughes, Mr Drieling and Mr Earnest should re-evaluate the costs. Mr Drieling suggested that the price should be increased over time; otherwise, the sudden increase would be a deterrent for the laboratories. After much deliberation, it was decided that the price per Round Trial will be increased by $50 ($200 per annum), from 2023. The increase in the price per Round Trial from $275 to $325 was approved by the Task Force.

Agenda Item 6: Administrative Matters Including Venue and Date for the next CSITC Meeting

Mr Hughes commented that he was evaluating the Plenary Meeting programme before determining whether the CSITC will be meeting during the 80th Plenary Meeting.

The Chair thanked ICAC and the Bremen Faserinstitut for arranging the meeting and ended the meeting with a note of thanks from and to the participants and the chair.