DPAS Rated Order: Rating Codes Chart, DO-A1 and DX Priority Ratings on Purchase Orders

It means the purchase order carries a priority rating under the Defense Priorities and Allocations System, 15 CFR part 700, so it legally outranks your unrated work. A rated order must show a priority rating such as DO-A1, a required delivery date, an authorized signature, and a certification statement declaring it a rated order for national defense use. Once you receive one, acceptance is mandatory unless a rejection ground in 700.13 applies.

They are the only two priority levels. DO rated orders all rank equally and take preference over unrated orders. DX rated orders all rank equally and take preference over both DO and unrated orders, and DX is reserved for the highest national defense priority. DX also carries the shorter acceptance deadline, 10 working days rather than 15. Only a Commerce Directive outranks a DX order.

Under 15 CFR 700.13(d)(1) you must accept or reject in writing or electronically within 15 working days after receiving a DO rated order, and within 10 working days after a DX rated order. If you reject, you must give the reasons in writing. Emergency preparedness rated orders are different: they set their own deadline, and the minimum allowed is 6 hours after receipt for a hazard that has occurred, or 12 hours for an imminent hazard.

DO is the priority rating symbol and A1 is the program identification symbol for defense aircraft programs. Together they say the order supports an approved aircraft program and outranks your unrated work. The A1 part conveys no priority of its own. A DO-A1 order and a DO-C9 miscellaneous order sit at exactly the same priority level, so you schedule them by required delivery date, not by symbol.

C9 is the Department of Defense miscellaneous program symbol in Schedule I, used for defense orders that do not fall under a more specific program such as aircraft, missiles, ships, or ammunition. A DO-C9 order carries exactly the same DO priority as any other DO order. It is common on parts, tooling, and support items where the buying activity has no narrower symbol to apply.

Yes. 15 CFR 700.15 requires you to place rated orders with suppliers for the industrial resources needed to fill a rated order, using the rating from your customer order, and to include all four required elements on each successive order. The rating continues from contractor to subcontractor to supplier down the whole chain. Two exceptions to the symbol: MRO purchases take H7, and combined orders with mixed symbols take H1.

Yes. Under 15 CFR 700.17(f) you are not required to place a priority rating on an order for less than $125,000, or one half of the Simplified Acquisition Threshold in FAR 2.101, whichever amount is greater, as long as you can obtain delivery in time without using the rating. That is a limit on the obligation to rate, not a bar on rating a smaller order when you need the preference.

No. 15 CFR 700.13(b) is explicit that scheduling conflicts with previously accepted lower rated or unrated orders are not a sufficient reason to reject. Those orders are the ones that get rescheduled under the preferential scheduling rules in 700.14. You must reject only where you genuinely cannot meet the date, and even then you must tell the customer the earliest date you can make and offer to accept on that basis.

No, and we would rather say so plainly. It reads the rated order and returns the priority rating, program symbol, required delivery dates, and line items as Excel, CSV, JSON, or an API response, which gives you a register and a receipt date to work from. It does not accept or reject orders, run the acceptance clock, judge whether a rating was properly applied, file anything with Commerce, or build your flow-down purchase orders.