Comparisons for improvement

General description

The SICC is a software created by IAP-SOFT to visualize and evaluate the technical performance of dairy herds by the retrospective analyses of the several bio-economic parameters. The analyses can be both internal (time series) and comparative against different referential frames defined by the user.

Technical aspects

In the current version, all those farms using the VAMPP software from which the databases are centralized at CRIPAS-UNA in Costa Rica, can be users of the system. From the aggregated database 23 technical parameters are calculated for each farm. The following table shows the parameters currently being include in the SICC database.

All these parameters are available for four dimensions:
...Historic
...Annual
...Historic by breed
...Annual by Breed

With SICC, users not only can evaluate the performance of their farm in time but comparing against around 500 farms in Costa Rica.

The analyses are mostly based on graphics:
...Bar graphics of annual performance
...Histograms for inter-herd comparisons
...Gantt Graphic for comparison against national figures and other referential frames.
...An innovative Global Technical Performance Map

All the information can also be obtained by reports and lists produced by SICC.

Versions

The only commercial version of SICC is the 1.01 with the database for the year 2002 and previous years with more that 500 farms within the database. Some special version of SICC that has been developed include: The SICC for the National Herd Improvement Association AMHL (Costa Rica) for analysing performance at herd, cow and lactation level and SQL querying; The SICC for Coop Dos Pinos (Costa Rica) for analysing bio-economic parameters at farm level.

Future Versions

A new generic version of SICC is being developed at the moment. With this new version relational databases can be incorporated to perform analyses using the same graphical approach; SQL language querying and qualitative and quantitative analyses of the information including cross tabulations (decision cubes), univariate analyses, frequencies analyses, regular expressions analyses for text analyses, among others. This version is very useful for users managing databases from surveys.

Users

The SICC was developed to support decision-making of farmers, researchers and decision-takers and those interested in analysing information from surveys.

Acknowledgements of the version 1.01:

The SICC was developed to support decision-making of farmers, researchers and decision-takers.
Acknowledgements of the version 1.01:
...VAMPP Database by CRIPAS-UNA
...Analyses by IAP-INVIN supported by the Costa Rican Dairy Farmers Chamber and CRIPAS-UNA.
...Production and distribution by Costa Rican Dairy Farmers Chamber and National Herd Improvement Association AMHL

Technological platform and database

It was developed in Delphi language over a Paradox database.

Hardware requirements

IBM Compatibles, processor Pentium or Celeron, 64MB RAM, Resolution 1024X768; Operative system: Windows 95/NT or higher.

Language

Interchanging double language
Languages available: Spanish, English (in process)