Before hunting down information on the internet, it is important for you to know that ASSIST is the official source for the most current defense standardization documents. ASSIST is a robust, comprehensive website used by standardization management activities to develop, coordinate, distribute, and manage defense and federal specifications and standards, military handbooks, commercial item descriptions, data item descriptions, and related technical documents prepared in accordance with the policies and procedures of the Defense Standardization Program (DSP). Besides DoD-prepared documents, ASSIST also has selected international standardization agreements, such as NATO standards ratified by the United States and International Test Operating Procedures.
Registered ASSIST users may search for documents, identify standardization points-of-contact, generate numerous standard or custom reports, and establish profiles to receive customized e-mail alerts when a preparing activity undertakes a project to develop or modify a document, posts a draft for coordination or publishes a new or revised document. There are several ways to search for documents. Depending on the method selected, search terms entered, or filters selected, a search may locate a single document or return a list of documents. Each listed document has a unique identifier (called a Document ID) and each is linked to a Document Details page that displays information about the document and lists all available document parts comprising that document's revision history.
ASSIST includes more than documents and document metadata. ASSIST also serves as a portal to, and is closely integrated with, the Qualified Products Database (QPD), which is the official DoD site for identifying parts and sources approved by DoD qualifying activities.
Get a copy of Non-Government Standards (NGS)
NGS documents are proprietary documents; the preparing organization holds the copyright and, with few exceptions, standards are NOT available for free. Most NGS Bodies either offer documents for sale directly, or sell documents through a designated commercial distributor. In most cases, single copies can be purchased via the Web with a credit card. A few NGS Bodies let users download copies of documents in PDF format from their websites for free, but they may charge a fee for paper copies. Some DoD employees may also have access to selected NGS document collections through subscription services or licenses obtained under host agency contracts..