NATO Commercial and Government Entity (NCAGE)

General

It is necessary for NATO to record each manufacturer’s name against codified items. A five-character NATO Commercial and Government Entity Code (NCAGE) is assigned to each manufacturer to meet this requirement. This code reflects the source and location of technical documentation for an item. Each National Codification Bureau (NCB) assigns the codes for its national manufacturers, and these are recognized and exchanged between NATO Codification System (NCS) members.

The following rules apply to the NCAGE code:

1. In the United States (US) - Three alphanumeric characters prefixed and suffixed by a numeral character (NYYYN).
2. For other countries the following options exist, 

• Three alphanumeric characters prefixed by one significant alphabetic character and suffixed by a numeral character (AYYYN).
• Three alphanumeric characters prefixed by a numeral character and suffixed by a significant alphabetic character (NYYYA).
• Three alphanumeric characters prefixed and suffixed by a significant alphabetic character (AYYYA).

Information regarding the rules for other countries are detailed in the NCS, and the only built-in support for this in IFS Applications is the possibility to ensure that NCAGE-codes for the United States have a numeric prefix and suffix (When the US Entity checkbox is selected in the NATO Commercial and Government Entity window).

The purpose of the NCAGE-code was that it should be unique worldwide. However in cases that the code is not unique, the country code will be used to distinguish between NCAGE-codes that have duplicates in different countries.

Connect an object to a NCAGE

Connecting an object to a NCAGE is done in the same manner as when connecting documents. It is easily configurable to add a new object that can be connected to a NCAGE.

The following objects can be connected to a NCAGE code (however, it requires the relevant components to be installed):

• Company
• Customer
• Supplier
• Manufacturer
• Owner
• Forwarder
• Site

The following rules apply to objects connected to NCAGE:

• One specific object, such as "Customer A" or "Manufacturer B", can only be connected to one NCAGE.
• One NCAGE can have several connected objects of the same type (such as several customers or several manufacturers) as long as the ID (Customer ID, Manufacturer ID etc.) of the object is not the same.
• If an object of type "Site" is connected to an NCAGE, it is required that the company of that specific site is not connected to a different NCAGE.
• If an object of type "Company" is connected to an NCAGE, it is required that all the sites of that specific company is not connected to a different NCAGE.