Standardisation references for armament programmes (RNPA)

In 1997, the ministerial responsible officer for standardisation and the DGA initiated, with very active participation from industry and the service staffs, the setting up of a standards library applicable to all defence programs managed by the French MOD (DGA) to meet the following objectives:

  to improve defence equipment cost and quality control by reducing the number of standards to be applied,
  to ensure and improve interoperability between forces, national weapons systems and equipment and allies,
  to give priority to the adoption of current standards, especially the most used civil standards, and promote the introduction of civilian and dual technologies,
  retain within the programs and standards only those standards that are essential in terms of results to leave maximum autonomy to industry in the choice of standards applicable to methods.

In addition to the advantages of homogeneity and optimisation that they offer, the RNPA, with its:

  600 standards applicable to programmes and contracts awarded to prime contractors,
  600 reference documents, that might aid in the drafting of specifications (guides) or that may be suggested by industry in their bids,

reduces, depending on the field, the number of standards by a ratio of between 5 and 10 compared with the number of standards previously applied to programs or quoted in contracts.

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