Summary: Packaging and Marking Guide for DoD

This is an informational guide prepared by the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) in March 2014 providing best practices for packaging and marking defense contract deliverables. The guide is not officially adopted by DoD but serves as an instructional resource for familiarization purposes and does not supersede contractual requirements, specifications, or regulations.

The guide establishes that packaging requirements are located across multiple sections of solicitations and contracts (Sections A through J), including in CIDs, military/federal specifications, aperture cards, drawings, special packaging instructions, DLA master solicitations, FAR/DFARS clauses, product specifications, military standard drawings, industry standards (ASTM), and packaging requirement codes. For hazardous materials, items must be packaged per applicable modal regulations: Title 49 CFR for land transport, IMO/IMDG for water, ICAO/IATA for commercial air, and AFMAN 24-204_IP for military air. Markings must comply with the appropriate modal regulations and MIL-STD-129 when specified. The document outlines five basic military preservation methods (Methods 10, 20, 30, 40, 50) ranging from physical protection only to watervaporproof protection with desiccant, along with detailed visual specifications for packaging methods (31-45 and 51-52). Military packaging applies to items deployed during wartime, requiring reusable containers, delivery-at-sea items, and items entering the Defense Transportation and Distribution System with storage exceeding six months. The guide includes packaging requirement codes (PRC) standardized in MIL-STD-20731E(1), quality assurance provisions from Appendix G including preservation and leakage inspections, and comprehensive marking requirements covering identification, bar codes, address markings, and special markings (shelf-life, project code, fragile, Method 50, expedited handling, hazardous materials). Additional requirements cover heat-treated wood packaging material (WPM) markings per IPPC standards, palletization per MIL-STD-147, and passive RFID tag application per DFARS Clause 252.211-7006.