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STANREC 4747
Acquiring organisations running lot-based product acceptance under a NATO or national defence contract, and the suppliers whose lots are sampled
STANREC 4747 is a NATO recommendation, not a binding agreement, naming MIL-STD-1916, ISO 2859-1 and ISO 28594 as preferred acceptance-sampling methods for judging a supplier's product lots against an agreed quality level.
STANREC 4747 is a NATO Standardization Recommendation for accepting product using sampling inspection. The distinction that matters most is in its name: unlike a STANAG, a STANREC does not commit a nation to ratify anything. NATO's own text is explicit that "Nations are invited to use the Allied standard(s) covered by the STANREC and to provide feedback to the NSO on the use of the covered Allied standard(s)" - an invitation, not a ratification obligation. Nothing in this document creates a duty for a supplier to sign up to directly.
The stated aim lists an alternate process to accept product based on sampling inspection, recommended for use "on end items, components or supplies in storage with significant quantity." Its principal purpose is to check that a Supplier's lots are "at, or better than, a mutually agreed level" of quality. The recommendation names three standards built on common sampling parameters - statistical sampling, Accept-Zero and Acceptable Quality Level (AQL): MIL-STD-1916 (the DOD's own preferred methods for acceptance of product), ISO 2859-1 (sampling plans indexed by AQL for lot-by-lot inspection) and ISO 28594 (combined accept-zero sampling systems and process control procedures for product acceptance). MIL-STD-1916 and ISO 28594 are also noted for the value of pairing process controls with the sampling plan, not sampling alone.
STANREC 4747 asks acquiring organisations to "encourage their suppliers to use these process control concepts and sampling procedures to demonstrate acceptable quality," and to ensure a system is devised that "clearly places responsibility for quality with the Supplier." It then closes off a specific misreading directly: government quality assurance applied to a Supplier "does not absolve the Supplier of their responsibility for quality." A customer's or a national representative's presence under a contract is not a substitute for the Supplier's own quality system, and this STANREC says so in its own words rather than leaving it implied.
This edition "supersedes the following document: STANREC 4747, Edition 1, dated 21 October 2013." Both editions cover the same subject; the recommendation itself, and which sampling standards it names, is what changed between them.
STANREC 4747 has no sampling procedure of its own to audit against - it names MIL-STD-1916, ISO 2859-1 and ISO 28594 and leaves the accept/reject mathematics to them. Its "other related documents" separately name STANAG 4728 (System Life Cycle Management, alongside AAP-20 and AAP-48) as adjacent reading, not content this recommendation depends on. The document is reviewed periodically in accordance with AAP-03, with the result recorded in the NATO Standardization Document Database; nations and NATO bodies are separately asked to report their own experience using the standards it covers.
STANREC 4747 gives an organisation nothing to implement in software on its own: it recommends which sampling standards to accept product against, and the testable procedure sits inside MIL-STD-1916, ISO 2859-1 or ISO 28594, not here.
What is left is the ordinary discipline of evidencing the choice and its outcome: recording which sampling standard a contract actually specifies, holding the lot acceptance and rejection records the chosen standard produces, training the staff who run the sampling inspection, and keeping the documentation that shows responsibility for quality stayed with the Supplier even where a customer or a national representative also carried out government quality assurance. ComplyTrain gives a place to hold that documentation, track who reviewed it, and keep the training record for the people doing the sampling current.
ComplyTrain does not run the sampling inspection or calculate an Accept-Zero or AQL result - that work is carried out by the quality engineering function, against the tables in MIL-STD-1916, ISO 2859-1 or ISO 28594. Which of those a given contract requires is set by the contract and the customer's quality clause, not by this page. Our standards explorer shows what sits alongside STANREC 4747 - if you're weighing up what a tender's acceptance clause is actually asking for, we're glad to talk it through.
Tell us how you need to work with STANREC 4747 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. A STANREC is a recommendation: NATO nations are invited to use the standards it names, without the ratification obligation a STANAG carries. Whether MIL-STD-1916, ISO 2859-1 or ISO 28594 applies to a specific programme is a question for that programme's contract.
A STANAG is an agreement nations ratify and commit to implement. A STANREC recommends a standard without that obligation - nations are invited to use it and to report their experience, but nothing requires them to.
MIL-STD-1916, ISO 2859-1 and ISO 28594, all built on common sampling parameters such as statistical sampling, Accept-Zero and Acceptable Quality Level (AQL). MIL-STD-1916 and ISO 28594 also cover the value of pairing process controls with the sampling plan.
No. STANREC 4747 states plainly that applying government quality assurance to a Supplier does not absolve the Supplier of its own responsibility for quality. The acquiring organisation is still expected to ensure a system exists that places that responsibility with the Supplier.
Yes. This edition supersedes STANREC 4747, Edition 1, dated 21 October 2013.
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