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National Codification Bureau

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The National Codification Bureaus or NATO Codification Bureaux (NCB) are a NATO organization that oversees the management of the NATO Codification System (NCS). It is governed by NATO Allied Committee 135 (AC/135), with each member nation's National Codification Bureau controlling and issuing its own unique NATO Stock Numberss.[1] NATO or European Union membership is not required to do so. Non-NATO (or "Partner") countries can be allowed to join if recommended, vetted, and approved by AC/135.

Countries that participate in the NATO Codification System (NCS) follow common standards and techniques to assign NATO Stock Numbers (NSNs) to items of supply in their defense inventory. The National Codification Bureau (NCB) within each country centrally assigns their national NSNs. The assignment of an NSN denotes a distinctive item of supply; to eliminate confusion, the number will never be re-used.

The NATO Stock Number (NSN) system was implemented by the United States on September 30, 1974, replacing the United States' Federal Stock Number system (1949-1974). It was managed by the Defense Integrated Data System in 1975.

All NSNs are uniform in composition, length, and structure. Each is represented by 13 characters XXXXXXXXXXXXX which is commonly formatted to highlight each functional block as XXXX-XX-XXX-XXXX.

The NATO Stock Number has been so successful as a Global System of item cataloging that Google and other Search Engines and Global Library Systems now formally recognize the NSN Format of XXXX-XX-XXX-XXXX for a product in the same way they recognize and use the GS1, UPC and EAN Retail Barcodes.

A NSN can be divided into two functional parts:

NATO Supply Classification Group

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The first four characters XXXX are the Federal Supply Classification Group (FSCG) / NATO Supply Classification Group (NSCG) code. This relates the item to the Federal Supply Group (FSG) / NATO Supply Group (NSG) (characters 1 & 2) and the Federal Supply Class (FSC) / NATO Supply Class (NSC) (characters 3 & 4) of similar items that it belongs to. For examples, see List of NATO Supply Classification Groups.

The NATO Supply Classification Group can change over time as the database is maintained.

The last 9 characters are the National Item Identification Number / NATO Item Identification Number (NIIN). The NIIN XXXXXXXXX may be commonly formatted as XX-XXX-XXXX.

The NIIN of a stock item never changes. So while the FSC may change over time causing the NSN to change, the NIIN remains constant. The NIIN is therefore the "primary key" or unique "Stock Keeping Unit (SKU)" of the NATO Stock Number System.

The NIIN was 9 Numeric Digits until the year 2000. Since 2000, the specification for the NSN has changed so that any character can be alphanumeric with valid characters of 0 through 10 and A through Z. It is customary to keep all characters uppercase.

The NIIN can be divided into two function parts:

National Codification Bureau

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The first two digits indicate the National Codification Bureau (NCB) that codified (assigned) the NIIN. The NCB Code has been informally called a "Country Code" or "Nation Code". Each country has one or more two-character NCB codes. There was some vanity in the assignment of these codes, for example some countries such as USA, France, Germany, Italy and Spain choosing their International Telephone Dialing Country Code while other Countries chose codes that have some meaning within their country's culture such as 99 for the United Kingdom. The NCB Codes were not, as some have reported, granted in the order the NCB system was adopted by that country.

THE NCB does not indicate who uses or stocks an item. Any nation or organization that participates in the NATO Stock Number system may use or stock any item. The NCB only indicates which Codification Bureau performed the initial codification. It is actually the prime directive of the system for any stock item to only be codified once while being used by all users. A continuous process of elimination of duplicates and very-near duplicates is performed to minimize the inventories of the using members.

The United States of America re-classified all of their pre-NCB System (pre-1974) Federal Supply Numbers(FSN) with the 00 NCB code as the NCB System was launched. The United States of America have NCB codes 00 through 10 reserved for their use and currently are using NCBs of 00 and 01.

Canada re-classified all of their pre-NCB System (pre-1974) Canadian Supply Numbers(CSN) with the 20 NCB code as the NCB System was launched. Canada currently uses NCBs of 20 and 21.

Some NCB are actively used for special reasons such as LL, LN and LF in the USA.

Some NCB are assigned outside of the NATO Database for Commercial Uses such as CA, CB, CC and CD.

National Codification Bureaus can be suspended and reinstated for many reasons including politics. Examples are the recent suspension of Afghanistan when the Taliban formed a Government in 2021 and the Russian Federation after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014.

The final seven characters (dubbed the "non-significant number" - but used without an acronym to avoid confusion with "NATO Stock Number") are randomly assigned. They indicate a code for the unique item within the codifying Country's management system.

The "non-significant number" is divided logically into two parts; the firsts 3 characters are the "interfix" which is a notional code for a "batch" of items which are sequenced by the last 4 characters. The two parts being commonly formatted with a hyphen separator XXX-XXXX. The notions of "non-significant number", "interfix" and "batch" are non-longer relevant to modern codification as they originate from the days of Punch-Cards and Mainframe Computers. Modern databases are quite happy with simply having the 9 character NIIN as a key.

Current List of NCB Codes[2][3]

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Country NCB Code(s) Status[4]
USA 00 and 01 NATO
Unassigned (USA) 02 through 10 n/a
NATO-standard items 11 n/a
West Germany / Germany 12 NATO
Belgium 13 NATO
France 14 NATO
Italy 15 NATO
Czechoslovakia / Czech Republic 16 NATO
Netherlands 17 NATO
South Africa 18 Tier 1
Brazil 19 Tier 2
Canada 20 and 21 NATO
Denmark 22 NATO
Greece 23 NATO
Iceland 24 NATO
Norway 25 NATO
Portugal 26 NATO
Turkey 27 NATO
Luxembourg 28 NATO
Argentina 29 Tier 2
Japan 30 Tier 1
Israel 31 Tier 2
Singapore 32 Tier 2
Spain 33 NATO
Malaysia 34 Tier 2
Thailand 35 Tier 1
Egypt 36 Tier 1
Republic of Korea 37 Tier 2
Estonia 38 NATO
Romania 39 NATO
Slovakia 40 NATO
Austria 41 Tier 2
Slovenia 42 NATO
Poland 43 NATO
United Nations-standard items 44 n/a
Indonesia 45 Tier 2
Philippines 46 Other
Lithuania 47 NATO
Fiji 48 Other
Tonga 49 Other
Bulgaria 50 NATO
Hungary 51 NATO
Chile 52 Tier 1
Croatia 53 NATO
North Macedonia 54 NATO
Latvia 55 NATO
Oman 56 Tier 1
Russian Federation 57 Other[5]
Finland 58 Tier 2
Albania 59 NATO
Kuwait 60 Other
Ukraine 61 Tier 2
Belarus 62 Tier 2
Morocco 63 Tier 1
Sweden 64 Tier 2
Papua, New Guinea 65 Other
Australia 66 Tier 2
Afghanistan 67 Other[6]
Georgia 68 Tier 1
? 69 n/a
Saudi Arabia 70 Tier 1
United Arab Emirates 71 Tier 2
India 72 Tier 1
Serbia 73 Tier 2
Pakistan 74 Other
Bosnia-Herzegovina 75 Tier 1
Brunei 76 Tier 1
Montenegro 77 NATO
Jordan 78 Tier 1
Peru 79 Tier 1
Colombia 80 Tier 2
Qatar 81 Tier 1
Algeria 82 Other
New Zealand 98 Tier 2
United Kingdom 99 NATO

The Federal Stock Number (FSN) was the codification system used by the US Government from 1957 to 1974. It was 11 digits long and was the same number as the NSN (see National Stock Number), minus the two-digit NCB code. The digits "00" were later added in the place of the NCB digits to virtually all FSN numbers to create compliant American 13-digit NSN numbers.

The FSN was officially replaced by the NATO Stock Number beginning on September 30, 1974.

On 1 April 2014, NATO unanimously decided to suspend co-operation with the Russian Federation, in response to the Ukraine crisis. On 18 February 2017, the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov said he supported the resumption of military cooperation with the NATO alliance.

BULCOD

CSIS - Codification Support Information System

MC CATALOGUE: an AURA Product

N-CORE NG: an ESG Group Product

SICAD

SIAC

SPCAT II

References

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  1. ^ "NATO Stock Number Search". NSN Lookup. "NSN Search"
  2. ^ "NATO Stock Numbers". NSN Lookup. "NATO Codification Bureaux"
  3. ^ http://www.nato.int/structur/AC/135/faq/faq-e.htm AC/135 FAQ Page
  4. ^ Current in April, 2020
  5. ^ On 1 April 2014, NATO unanimously decided to suspend co-operation with the Russian Federation, in response to the Ukraine crisis.
  6. ^ Afghanistan's membership suspended with the fall of their government in August, 2021.