DEFINING AMMTA AND ITS ROLE

• We need people to recognize what it means to be an AMMTA qualified technician.
• Training once there has been some preamble needs to be carried out on the farm.  Understanding the basic functions of pulsation etc, familiarize field officers with the top of the page minimum b/d & c phases and explain air filters.  A lot of the information in the specs book.
• Need to give Factory Field Officers questions to ask the technicians to ensure that good communication is established with AMMTA people e.g. is the pulsation working ok?
• Field Officers will know the cell counts etc but need to identify the issues that are major/minor alarms not just non compliant.  We don’t want people creating half issues as dairy farmers often take the advice of the dairy tanker driver or vet before the technician.
• Field Officers do work closely with vets on occasions but that should not be in isolation form the other industry players - the need for co-operation with technicians needs to be outlined and reinforced again.
• They need to understand that the technicians are there to help. 
• Technicians lose credibility when they are fitting equipment not necessarily required we need to reinforce this philosophy across the industry.
• Field Officers need to know what materials are used in milking machine construction are acceptable and where. These are included in the AMMTA Installation Minimum Standards recommendations.

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