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An Army supply sergeant says: "Adakah anda mempunyai NSN 6510-98-850-9123?" In return, a Navy stock keeper says: "A-ni-yo, goe-re-na NSN 6510-66-125-3092 rul ga-ji-go it-sum-mi-da."
Three
languages are spoken here. Do you recognize them? Perhaps you could
identify two of the languages, but the third is less obvious.
It is the international language of military supply logistics
- the NATO Codification System (NCS).
Today, over 40 countries use the NCS, and the list keeps growing.
Widely spoken in Europe and North America, this language is spreading
into the Asia-Pacific region.
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Not Just for NATO Anymore
The NCS is a standard method of cataloging items of supply, to include assigning National Stock Numbers (NSNs) and capturing information needed throughout the supply chain. The foundation for the NCS is that a supply item should have one NSN, worldwide. So NSN 6510-98-850-9123 would refer to the same supply item in Singapore as in Thailand.
The
Pacific Area Senior Officer Logistics Seminar (PASOLS) wants to spread
the use of the NCS throughout the Asia-Pacific region.
PASOLS is an annual conference co-sponsored by Headquarters,
Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Command with another regional
armed forces headquarters. It
is a multinational, multi-service forum for senior logistics officers
from the Asia-Pacific region to exchange and discuss new ideas and
review logistics initiatives introduced by their regional neighbors. For this reason, PASOLS formed the Pacific Area Cataloging
System (PACS).
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