NSN Search on GovTribe

What is an NSN?

A National Stock Number (NSN) is a 13-digit numeric code assigned to every “standardized material item of supply” as recognized by the United States Department of Defense (as well as all NATO countries, and some non-NATO countries). NSNs are assigned to about 13 million products, materials, or components, each with defined specifications and descriptions.

Items assigned an NSN may be directly associated with military equipment such as uniforms, parachutes, vehicles and vehicle components, weapons and ammunition, etc.

NSNs also cover items more generic in use including electronic components, medical equipment, office furniture, industrial goods, bolts and nails, and much, much more.

For more information on how NSN designation are made, and what each component of an NSN signifies, I recommend the thrilling Wikipedia article on the topic. In this post, though, I want to focus on:

How the Federal Government Uses NSNs

The federal government buys a lot of products, and if the product at hand is at all commoditized it has likely been assigned an NSN. So procurement officers often list the NSNs being purchased in the procurement documents. However, they do not do so in a standardized, structured manner. NSNs sometimes appear in the title of a federal opportunity, or in the middle of the synopsis, or buried in an imaged PDF document (something like what you see below).

Search by NSN on GovTribe

GovTribe has implemented a process for accurately identifying the NSN in unstructured sections of procurement documents in order to properly categorize the Opportunity.

You can now search and filter by NSN in opportunity search, and set up alerts to receive email notifications when new opportunities are announced that list a specific NSN.

You can give it a try now from the Federal Contract Opportunity search page.

You can also check read more about how it works in our help article on searching by NSN.