Bill Manufacturing: Improved Planning and Production Oversight Over NexGen $100 Note Is Critical.

摘要

Our objectives are to assess (1) the planning and implementation of the production process and the events that led to the problems in the production process; (2) the physical security over the notes that have been produced; (3) BEP’s plans for the disposition of those notes; and (4) BEP’s actions, taken and planned, to address the production problems. We performed our audit fieldwork from December 2010 to October 2011. Because of the coordinated efforts by BEP and FRB involved in the design, development, and production of the NexGen $100 notes, we coordinated our audit with the FRB OIG who will issue a separate report to FRB. Appendix 1 contains a more detailed description of our audit objectives, scope, and methodology. We consider the delayed introduction of the NexGen $100 note to be a production failure that potentially could have been avoided and has already resulted in increased costs. We found that BEP did not (1) perform necessary and required testing to resolve technical problems before starting full production of the NexGen $100 note, (2) implement comprehensive project management for the NexGen $100 note program, and (3) adequately complete a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis for the disposition of the approximately 1.4 billion finished NexGen $100 notes already printed but not accepted by FRB. Accordingly, before resuming full production of the NexGen $100 note, we recommend that BEP complete production validation tests to ensure technical problems are resolved. BEP should also implement a comprehensive and integrated project management function for the NexGen $100 note program, as well as for future note designs. In addition, we recommend that BEP, in coordination with FRB, complete a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis before making decisions related to the disposition of the NexGen $100 notes that have not been accepted by FRB. In response to our audit objective to review the physical security of the NexGen $100 notes, we issued an interim report in May 2011 noting three findings. We plan to issue a separate report to follow up on the recommendations made in that report and to communicate any additional security findings going forward.