The Story of High Volume Instrument Testing

The First Steps

In the 1960s, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) instituted a project to develop instruments that would have the ability to measure cotton’s most important attributes to supplement and eventually replace their manual (subjective) cotton classing.

Several high volume instrument (HVI®) lines for cotton testing were evaluated in the early 1970s by the USDA and participating mills. Cotton Incorporated joined in the evaluation of this new technology and concluded in 1973 that proper use of HVI data dramatically improved a mill’s cotton-related profits.

Denim manufacturers were the first to make large-scale use of HVI data as a result of their changeover from ring spinning to rotor spinning in the late 1970s. Denim mills discovered that HVI data provided a rapid, cost-effective method of locating high-strength cotton required to meet accepted fabric specifications.

HVI Data Today

Today, active HVI systems in the United States represent a large percentage of the systems in use throughout the world. To increase efficiency in the production, marketing and utilization of cotton fibers, most segments of the U.S. cotton industry use HVI data in their domestic and international operations.

Who Uses HVI Data?

In the United States, the four largest HVI user groups are cotton producers, merchants, textile mills and the USDA. USDA classing of the entire crop by HVI methods began in the fall of 1991. Today, nearly all raw cotton inventories and blending operations are linked to HVI-measured properties.

Cotton Incorporated developed the MILLNet software package to enable a mill to use the HVI data generated on each bale of cotton to effectively manage its cotton acquisition, warehousing and mix selection.

Cotton Incorporated developed the MILLNet package to enable a mill to use the HVI data generated on each bale of cotton to manage effectively its cotton acquisition, warehousing, and mix selection.