Comment by wildzzz

Mil spec part numbers for things like screws are great! We needed a very long screw in a specific style and material that no one stocked. We pulled up the mil spec datasheet for that style of screw, made up the part number based on our needs, and sent it to our fastener vendor. We get back exactly what we designed for without having to spend time designing our own special purpose screw. The vendor already has the spec so we can just point to exactly what we want and none of us have to spend time going back and forth to find a compromise.