Opinion ID: 159646
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Work Orders and the Government's Surveillance Under the Contract

Text: 7 The contract required AAA to prepare work orders, form number 833, for all the work it performed under the contract. When a customer initially requested photography products or services, a work order would be generated. The customer would record on the work order the type and number of photographs or other products she was requesting and any materials, such as negatives, which she was providing. The work order would be assigned a number for tracking purposes (the tracking number), and the AAA employee responsible for the work order would record the work necessary to complete the customer's order. A priority level 2 would be assigned to the work and, if necessary, the work order would be routed through the government Quality Assurance Evaluator's (QAE) office for pre-approval. 3 8 An AAA employee would then perform the work and record matters such as the number of exposures taken, the amount of film developed, and how many pictures resulted. The finished products would then be packaged together with the work order. The government QAE would then have the opportunity to review the work order and the final products, after which the QAE would return the work order and products to AAA. After the customer picked up the finished products, the AAA employee would record the type and amount of products actually delivered to the customer. 9 AAA would temporarily retain the work orders, grouping them numerically and by function. The numbers recorded on the work orders were tallied monthly and the results printed in monthly production reports which AAA was required to submit to the government under the contract. The work orders would then be returned to the QAE monthly where they then remained. 10 In addition to being the organizational mechanism for recording and tracking photography service orders, the work orders also assisted the government employees who monitored AAA's performance. QAE Brenda Coil testified, however, that pursuant to the contract she would only inspect a portion of AAA's finished production through a method called random surveillance. Random surveillance was performed in the following manner: at the end of each month, a computer program provided Coil with a randomly-generated list of the tracking numbers for the work orders she should inspect during the following month. If the tracking number was on her list, she would then compare the information recorded on the work order with the final product to determine whether the work was performed timely and in compliance with the customer's request. She would also inspect the photographs, negatives, or other final products individually to determine whether the quality of the work was acceptable. 4