What is the National Stock Number (NSN)? The National Stock Number (NSN) is defined as an official label applied to an item of supply that is repeatedly purchased, stocked, stored, issued, and used throughout the Federal supply system. This label can be applied to just about every item imaginable. When an item from different manufacturers is of the same size and features, and performs the same function, a single NSN can be used to label it.
Who uses National Stock Numbers? The NSN is used by the United States government, as well as many other governments around the world and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Federal agencies, such as the Department of Defense (DOD), use National Stock Numbers to purchase and manage their supplies.
All National Stock Numbers are cataloged in the Federal Logistics Information System (FLIS). There are about fourteen million active and inactive US NSNs, plus about eight million active NSNs allocated to items produced in non-US NATO member countries, which are shared within defense inventories.
How to read the National Stock Number (NSN)? The NSN is a thirteen digit number. This thirteen-digit number consists of the four-digit Federal Supply Class (FSC) and the nine-digit National Item Identification Number (NIIN).
The Federal Supply Class (FSC) is the code used to group products into logical families for management purposes. Each FSC code is derived from the Federal Supply Groups (FSG). The FSG is the first two digits of the FSC code, and the next two digits make up the country of origin code. The country of origin code means the country that originally requested the NSN assignment, not necessarily where it is produced. The codes 00 and 01 are used to identify the United States.
The National Item Identification Number (NIIN) is the code that identifies each item of supply. The first two numbers of the NIIN represent the National Codification Office Code, which identifies the central NATO cataloging office or some other friendly country that entered the item into the supply system, with the remaining seven digits assigned sequentially to identify individually each. item in the Federal Catalog System (FCS).
Therefore, the National Stock Number contains subgroups identifying the Federal Supply Group (FSG) in positions 1-2, the Federal Supply Class (FSC) in positions 1-4, the NATO Country Code in positions 5-6, the National Article Identification Number (NIIN) in positions 5-13, and finally the product serial number in positions 7-13.