A status report on Milspec Conversion

The SAE standards development and research program is industry-driven and supported. Many of its committees have worked with the U.S. government to develop standards and are familiar with the applicable military documents. The successful transition from military to SAE, however, requires a close working relationship between the committee and the Preparing Activity (PA) for that standard. The participation of industry and U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) in committee work is critical to establishing valid requirements and ensuring a viable standard.

In the aerospace sector, SAE is working closely with an Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) working group on aerospace military specification conversion. AIA formed an Early Warning Project Group (EWPG) to ensure that Non-Government Standards Body (NGSB) replacement standards for canceled military standards are technically equivalent and suitable for aerospace industry use. Their main concern is that PAs who are not familiar with the needs of aerospace manufacturers control a number of key documents.

The EWPG maintains a database of about 5,000 standards selected by the AIA member companies as important to their company. The document status information is taken from the DoD Index of Standards and Specifications (DODISS) online database (ASSIST). The EWPG data base will eventually list the replacement NGSB standards for the former military documents.

In all cases, one should check the full text of the cancellation notice for determining the status of the canceled document and the superseding document. The wording of the notice can be critical for some applications. A canceled document can still be valid for procurement in support of legacy systems.