APPENDIX E: MINUTES FROM THE FIRST PANEL MEETING

Minutes of the March 1, 1999, Meeting of the Pooled Fund States for Optimal Acceptance Procedures for Statistical Specifications

(1) The meeting began at 8:10 a.m. with a few introductory comments by Peter Kopac.

(2) Jim Burati then went through some administrative issues, including the agenda for the meeting (see attachment 1), participant introductions, and travel reimbursement procedures.

(3) Jim Burati then briefly summarized the progress of the project to date, including the literature search, the summary of State specifications, and the flowcharts of the specification development process.

Action Item: All participants are asked to review the specification summary information for their State and send any corrections or additions to Reagan Prince by fax (864-656-2670) or e-mail (jprince@clemson.edu).

(4) Chuck Hughes then reviewed the phase I flowchart of the specification development process. Comments and suggestions that were made included:

• Peter Kopac indicated that he thought there was a need to add an item, "Establish criteria for success," in phase I, possibly as item 2.3.
• Jeff Seiders indicated that item 5, "Confirm interest and commitment," was particularly important.
• Ataur Bacchus indicated that an executive summary document should be available for review throughout the specification development process. He also indicated that there were three objectives for the specification development process:
  1. Obtain effective specifications.
  2. Be able to explain the specifications at the practitioner level.
  3. Be able to convince executives (even if management changes) of the benefits of the specification.

Action Item: Jim Burati will revise the phase I flowchart to incorporate "Establish criteria for success" as an item. Chuck Hughes will then make any corresponding changes to the text that accompanies the flowchart.

(5) Chuck Hughes then reviewed the phase II flowchart of the specification development process. Comments and suggestions that were made included:

• Jeff Seiders indicated that it is necessary to retain method provisions and stipulated engineering practices for cases where good test procedures or measures are not available.
• Rick Kreider asked in how much detail "Dispute Resolution" would be covered in the manual. It was indicated that only the general concepts would be presented.
• It was decided that an effort should be made to ensure that the terminology in the flowcharts and the manual should be consistent with the Code of Federal Regulations, 23 CFR Part 637.
• Steve DeWitt asked whether it would be possible to put all of the phase II flowchart on a single page. Options will be explored to try to make it easier to follow the flow through the chart.
• Chris Abadie suggested that flowchart items similar to boxes 20 through 25 should be incorporated into the QC section (i.e., boxes 11 through 13).
• It was suggested that a decision diamond should be incorporated after box 25, "Obtain data," to check whether the data warrant use of the property for acceptance purposes.

Action Item: Jim Burati will investigate revising the phase II flowchart to incorporate the items suggested in the bullets above. Chuck Hughes will then make any corresponding changes to the text that accompanies the flowchart.

(6) Chuck Hughes then reviewed the phase III flowchart of the specification development process. Comments and suggestions that were made included:

• Peter Kopac pointed out that it would be necessary to modify phase III to be consistent with the changes in phase I.

Action Item: Jim Burati will revise the phase III flowchart to ensure that it is consistent with phase I. Chuck Hughes will then make any corresponding changes to the text that accompanies the flowchart.

(7) Jim Burati then reviewed the preliminary specification analyses that have been conducted. These included:

• Bias in OC curves for PWL/PD.
• Precision in OC curves for PWL/PD.
• Precision of average project PWL/PD.
• Precision of individual payment estimates.
• Effect of bimodal distributions.
• Effect of skewed distributions.
• OC/expected payment curves for AAD plans.
• Comparison of expected payment between AAD and PWL plans.

In the interest of clarity, it was suggested that either PWL or PD, but not both, be used in the analyses that are done.

Action Item: The analyses that are performed on the project will all be reported in terms of PWL.

(8) Jim Burati then presented some additional analysis topics that might be considered during the project. These included:

• Use of Bayesian procedures for acceptance.
• Determination of the lot pay factors for individual properties.
• Determination of the composite pay factor for the lot.
• Validation/verification procedures for contractor/agency tests.
• Effect of non-normal populations.
• Effect of increased sampling and testing variability.
• Miscellaneous "bells and whistles," such as payment based on PWL, but with no price reductions if all individual tests are within the limits.

Action Item: Since there was not sufficient time to decide on the above items, it was decided that Jim Burati would distribute the items to the individual panel members for prioritizing and the items would then be returned to him for summarization.

(9) The meeting adjourned at 3:30 p.m.

Prepared and distributed by:

_____________________________
Jim Burati, Principal Investigator

FHWA-HRT-04-046

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