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APRIL 2026 I I-CONNECT007 MAGAZINE 77 submitted formal comments. The specification sheets—covering rigid multilayer, rigid single- and double-layer, flexible, rigid-flex, and high-frequency board technologies—impact a wide range of pro- grams across all services. What Comes Next The memorandum leaves open one meaning- ful pathway: Any activity that determines there is a continued need to maintain MIL-PRF-31032 or its specification sheets may request a transfer of management responsibility from DLA Weapons Support. This suggests the cancellation is not necessarily permanent or irreversible, but it would require a willing and capable government entity to step forward and assume ownership. Whether that happens will depend largely on how much of the defense establishment treats this notice as a bureaucratic formality vs. an urgent supply chain risk. Given the strategic importance of qualified domestic PCB manufacturing to virtually every weapons system in the U.S. inventory, the answer to that question deserves careful attention from program managers, acquisition professionals, and defense industry leaders alike. One Forward Path: The IPC Equivalent Framework Many military specifications have slowly been transitioning to IPC specifications for quite a while, so this might be the logical move forward. The IPC-6010 series already serves as the commercial counterpart to MIL-PRF-31032, and the mapping is fairly direct. IPC-6013 Class 3 is generally accepted by gov- ernment agencies as a commercial off-the-shelf equivalent to MIL-PRF-31032 for flexible boards. The same Class 3 performance tier logic applies across the 6010 series. The Global Electronics Association also antici- pated the defense use case with IPC-6012DS, a Space and Military Avionics Applications Adden- dum to IPC-6012D, which specifically addresses requirements for space and military avionics en- vironments. It supplements or replaces identified requirements of IPC-6012D for rigid printed boards that must survive the vibration, ground testing, and thermal cyclic environments of space and military avionics. So, the performance specification side of the transition is largely covered. The harder problem is everything else MIL-PRF-31032 does beyond just specifying board performance. The Bottom Line The performance requirements transfer to IPC cleanly. The qualification infrastructure—the QML, the TRB governance model, the DLA oversight role—does not transfer automatically and would re- quire deliberate design by whoever accepts man- agement responsibility for these documents, or by a DoD acquisition policy decision to formally adopt IPC standards with an accompanying qualification authority. Now the waiting begins. I-CONNECT007 Steve Williams is president of The Right Approach Consulting. He is also an independent certi- fied coach, trainer, and speaker with the John Maxwell team. To read past columns, click here. T H E R I G H T A P P ROAC H