BEP Feature of Interest Survey for Banknote Equipment Ma

OMB Control No. 1520-0012

Bureau of Engraving and Printing Feature of Interest (FOI) Survey for Banknote Equipment Manufacturers

General Instructions: In the questions below, the examples of features are referred to as “FOI.” Please complete this survey for the FOI with the following label:

(BEP personnel insert sample label information here)

When answering these questions, please consider your own needs as well as your customers’ and vendors’ needs, when appropriate. Please feel free to expound upon any answer in as much detail as you would like to share. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing requests this information to help Federal Reserve Note (FRN or U.S. currency) development teams understand your needs/constraints better.

Please be advised this survey is intended for the sole purpose of gathering information and input. It does not imply any commitment to act upon the information and input provided. Nothing herein should be construed as the views of, directions from, or instructions by BEP regarding a change or modification to any equipment and services provided by your company.

1. Please fill in the table below for your FRN Validators or products as shown in the example below. Please add lines to accommodate each of your products.

If a different tabulating scheme is preferred or more applicable to your product line, please feel free to modify and customize the table to meet your needs.

BEM Product Information

BEM Observations Related to the FOI

SERIES/MODEL

Technologies in this series/model

FOI detected? (yes/no)

Number of FOI samples tested

Number of FOI samples detected

Serial number(s) of FOI samples not detected (last 4 digits)

Rate how the FOI affects the following operation of each product using this scale. 1=unfavorable 2=neither favorable nor unfavorable 3=favorable

Basic operations:

Optical Sensing:

Magnetic Sensing:

Validation

Transport

Storage

Spectral diversity

Size/ Spacing

Image contrast

Sufficient signal

Size/ Spacing

Sufficient contrast

EXAMPLE Checker III- 2014ABC Series

IR reflective, UV transmissive, magnetic, etc.

Yes

3

2

1003

2

1

3

3

1

2

N/A

N/A

N/A

2. What three characteristics did you like most about this FOI?

3. What three characteristics did you like least about this FOI?

4. Would U.S. currency with this FOI require hardware changes to your existing products? Please estimate the cost of the accommodating hardware changes.

   1. Cost in $ per sensor

   2. Cost in $ per product/system

Attributes of the FOI as is:

5. Do you expect the FOI to contribute in any way to false acceptance of counterfeits in circulation? If so, please explain how the FOI would contribute to false acceptance of counterfeits.

6. Will the FOI contribute to false rejection of genuine U.S. currency in circulation? If so, please explain how the FOI would contribute to the false rejection of genuine currency.

7. Is the FOI detectably different from features used on other banknotes to avoid incorrect identification?

8. Do you anticipate any benefits of the FOI for your business?

Your recommendations for the FOI:

9. How can U.S. currency development teams mitigate any concerns you may have noted in any question above?

10. For the FOI to work well with your products, is there an optimal size or area limit (either small or large) to the size of this feature? If possible, please provide either a value or express it as a percentage of the FRN area.

11. Are there optimal patterning choices for the FOI to work well with your products?

12. For the FOI to work well with your products, is there an optimal location (front, back, quadrant, spacing, etc.) for this feature?

13. What is the maximum thickness (in micrometers) of a FRN (sum of substrate thickness and thickness of any additional feature on the substrate) that your FRN Validators or products can accommodate?

14. Please share any additional comment or impression about the FOI not covered by the questions above.

COMPANY, Feature of Interest #, DESCRIPTION

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PRA Burden Statement: The public reporting burden for this information collection is estimated to be 60 minutes. Send comments regarding the accuracy of this burden estimate and any suggestions for reducing the burden to: BEM_and_CRM_Customer_Support@bep.gov.  You are not required to respond to this collection of information unless a valid OMB control number is displayed.