Mil Specs and Standardization Norms

The Department of Defense has introduced many Defense Standards also known as Mil-SPECs. These standards are used to standardize the products and services produced and used by the U.S. military. A United States Defense Standard, often called a military standard, “MIL-STD”, or “MIL-SPEC”, is used to help achieve standardization objectives by the U.S. Department of Defense. Standardization is beneficial in achieving interopersonality, ensuring products meet certain requirements, commonality, reliability, total cost of ownership, compatibility with logistics systems, and similar defence-related objectives.

Use of Mil Specs in Commercial Areas:

Even though pioneered by the DoD, many Mil Spec standards can also be used by non-defense Government and technical organizations. The Department of Defense cannot prohibit other non-military organizations from using detailed Mil Specs.  The contractor needs to put the solicitation in the appropriate manner as mentioned in the contract, and it’s the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) that will administer the requirements accordingly.

 In 1994, the DoD had made serious attempt to reduce the reliance on mil specs in favour of commercial (primarily Q9000) standards. The idea was to remove the Military's burden of funding the development and deployment of mil specs. However, in 1995, the DoD again decided to embrace the use of mil spec standards for all kinds of products. In last couple of years, there has been a significant growth of commercial organizations using Mil Specs for everything starting from design to manufacturing, and quality control to maintenance both for military as well as non-military-related equipment and services. It’s worth mentioning here that although the DoD encourages organizations to use detailed Mil Specs in any solicitation, any kind of waiver for this has been withdrawn.  

Availability of Mil Spec Documents on the Web:

Thanks to the web, finding mil specs is easier today than ever. Many websites offer free downloadable versions. However, access to the document standard varies depending upon whether the mil spec is prepared by a government organization or a private organization, and also whether public distribution is permitted or not. Usually mil specs and federal specifications in the public domain are freely downloadable from official government websites. However, proprietary standards developed by non-government bodies usually need to be purchased, either directly from the sponsoring organization's website or from the vendor licensed to distribute the specs.

 Mil specs created decades ago by the DoD are often replaced by updated versions. Hence it’s very important to access military standards from a centralized point that allows the cataloguing and comparison necessary to determine the updated mil specs available.

Some important Mil Spec Standards:

Some major standards of Mil Specs are the MIL-STD-129, MIL-STD-129P, MIL-STD-130 and MIL-STD-130N. While the MIL-STD-129P (the upgraded version of MIL-STD-129 standard) is used for military items carried in shipping containers, MIL-STD-130N, the latest version of MIL-STD-130 is used for labelling verification and validation of various military items.

These Mil Specs are useful as they ensure that the military products meet the standard commonality, requirements, compatibility with logistics systems, reliability, total cost of ownership, and similar defense-related objectives.