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ADMP-04
Government dependability experts and defence programme teams reviewing a contractor's dependability activities
NATO guidance for a government's own dependability experts on what to review and require from a contractor at each phase of a defence system's life, from pre-concept to retirement.
ADMP-04, Government Activities for Defence Systems Dependability, is a NATO Allied Dependability Management Publication promulgated in June 2025 as Edition A. It is unusual among the standards on this site in one important way: it is written for the government side of a defence programme, not the contractor. The document states its own scope directly - it "focuses on the government part of dependability activities" - and everything in it is framed as what a government dependability expert does, checks, or asks for, at each stage of a defence system's life.
That does not make it irrelevant to a supplier. It describes, in detail, what the customer's dependability staff will review, when they will review it, and what they expect to see. A contractor bidding into or delivering against a NATO or national defence programme is dealing with the other side of exactly this document.
ADMP-04 sets out a "tailorable approach for identifying and managing the necessary dependability activities in each phase of the system life cycle." It covers two acquisition routes with different implications: a newly developed item, and an Off The Shelf (OTS) purchase, whether Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) or Military Off The Shelf (MOTS). For OTS acquisition the document is candid that the government has little or no influence over the item's design, so the government's activity shifts from shaping requirements to assessing whatever usage, failure and warranty evidence a supplier can provide.
The bulk of the document is organised around the NATO Life Cycle Model from AAP-20: pre-concept, concept, development, production, utilisation and support, and retirement. For each phase it sets out the phase's general purpose, the dependability challenges specific to it, the government's own activities, and a set of "points of vigilance" the expert should watch for.
The document is concrete about the evidence trail, and this is where it is most useful to a supplier trying to anticipate what will be asked for. It expects a dependability plan, Failure Mode, Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) worksheets built to a specific structure, reliability growth test plans with defined pass/fail criteria, and FRACAS or DRACAS records running from early in development. Three annexes make this concrete rather than abstract: a checklist for assessing a contractor's reliability activity, a checklist for assessing an FMECA, and a full worked example of an FMECA Data Item Description, complete with the severity categories (Catastrophic, Critical, Marginal, Minor) and probability levels a reviewer would expect to see used consistently.
ADMP-04 is one of a small family. ADMP-01 covers how dependability requirements are established in the first place; ADMP-02 covers managing dependability once the item is in service; ADMP-03 covers classifying and analysing dependability events. ADMP-04 assumes those processes exist and builds the government's review activity around them. Its life cycle structure follows AAP-20, the NATO Programme Management Framework, and it draws on ALP-10 for how dependability interacts with Integrated Life Cycle Support, on STANAG 4370 and AECTP-100 for how environmental qualification relates to (but is distinct from) dependability qualification, on STANAG 4427 for configuration management, and on IEC 60812 for the FMEA/FMECA method itself. Nations are recommended, not obligated, to use it: the recommendation is recorded in STANREC 4174, which also recommends the underlying process standards a contractor is expected to follow. As with all NATO documents, ADMP-04 is free of charge and not sold; it is retrieved from the NATO Standardization Document Database or through a national standardization authority, never from a third-party copy.
ADMP-04 explicitly does not tell a government how to organise itself internally to handle dependability - it leaves that to each nation. It is not a certification scheme: nowhere does it describe an accredited body, a notified body, or any award of "ADMP-04 certification." What it describes instead is the government's own internal surveillance of the contractor's evidence, formalised in design reviews and a government dependability report. It also does not set the applicable tier for a given programme - that is a matter for the contract and the customer's quality clause, not for this document or for any vendor reading it on your behalf.
Working to ADMP-04 in practice means producing and maintaining a paper trail: a dependability plan, FMECA and criticality worksheets, reliability growth test plans, and FRACAS or DRACAS records that a government dependability expert will ask to see at each design review and delivery milestone. That is document and record management work as much as it is engineering work, and it is the kind of work ComplyTrain is built to support: controlled versions of the plan, a place to hold the review evidence and design review packages, and training records for the people producing them, kept in one auditable trail rather than scattered across email and shared drives.
ComplyTrain does not do the dependability engineering itself. It will not run an FMECA, calculate a reliability prediction, or write the government dependability report - that is the work of a contractor's reliability engineers and a government's own dependability expert, and it stays theirs. What ADMP-04 requires alongside it on a given programme, and which tier applies, is set by the contract and the customer's quality clause, not by us. If you are preparing for a government dependability review, the standards explorer shows what sits alongside ADMP-04 in the wider ADMP family, and we are glad to talk through how you would evidence the work.
Tell us how you need to work with ADMP-04 and what you need from it. We will come back to you about what ComplyTrain can do.
Thank you. Your list is on its way to your inbox, and we will come back to you on what working with these standards in ComplyTrain involves, usually within one business day.
No nation is obliged to apply it by ratification. It is recommended to nations through STANREC 4174, and it becomes concrete for a specific programme only when a government writes dependability requirements, reviews, or reporting obligations into a contract or Statement of Work.
Its own stated scope is the government side of dependability activity: what a government dependability expert should do at each phase. It has plenty to say about the contractor too, but only as the other party the government is reviewing.
ADMP-01 covers setting dependability requirements, ADMP-02 covers managing dependability once an item is in service, and ADMP-03 covers classifying and analysing dependability events. ADMP-04 assumes those three processes are in place and describes how the government reviews and oversees them across the whole life cycle.
No. The document describes a government dependability expert's internal review of a contractor's evidence, formalised in design reviews and a government dependability report, not a certification awarded by any accredited or notified body.
Directly from NATO. It is free of charge and retrieved from the NATO Standardization Document Database or through your national standardization authority, never as a paid or third-party copy.
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