The NATO Codification System (NCS) is a uniform and standard system for the identification, classification and stock numbering of items of supply, used by all NATO countries. It’s designed to achieve maximum effectiveness in logistics support.

All items used by the Armed Forces within the UK will have a NATO Stock Number (NSN) allocated as a product of the NCS. Therefore, every supply contract requires that equipment and associated spare parts are NATO Codified and given an NSN prior to main gate approval.

The role of conducting NATO Codification within the UK has been given to UK NCB, an MoD defence equipment and support department based in Glasgow, Scotland.

The UK NCB is the custodian of the UK Codification Support Information System (CSIS), the only true source for creating and viewing NSNs. It contains more than five million NSN records, identifying and describing items of equipment used by the UK’s Armed Forces. 

To enable UK NCB to supply its customers (equipment manufacturers and MoD departments) with a timely response to requests for NSNs, the UK NCB entrusts CMCA (UK)’s specialist codification team to create and maintain NSNs on the central database.

Since April 2014, we’ve been the UK’s only approved NATO Codification contractor. We support our primary customers with a wide range of NATO Codification services, including:

• Codification management
• Source data collection, acquisition and validation
• Screening for existing NSNs
• Translating NSNs into purchasing information