Start here if you have been told to submit DD Form 2042. First, know what you are filling: Work Measurement Time Study Worksheet (Snapback). The document is titled DD Form 2042, Work Measurement Time Study Worksheet (Snapback), December 1976.
Your second step is the edition, not stated, listed as not stated. Your third is scope. Because the number carries a DD prefix, you use the same blank as every other military department and defense agency; no service-specific version exists for you to hunt down.
After that, turn to timing. The requirement comes from not stated; the form is maintained by not stated. Local implementing instructions fill in the dates, so check with the office that will receive your copy.
Finally, decide how you will complete it. You can type into a fillable file or print a blank and write by hand, and the rest of this page walks you through both paths in order.
Start at the header. Complete your identification before anything else, then work through the main entries, then finish at the certification. Skipping around causes contradictions between the top of the form and the bottom.
Your first action is verification. Find the edition date on the form and match it against not stated. A mismatch means you are working from a superseded printing, and because DD forms change Department-wide rather than service by service, the office receiving it will notice.
Look up an unclear item on the form face before anywhere else, then in not stated. Should the two texts conflict, the directive is the one you follow.
Download the form
First, look at what you can download. The set covers PDF, the form runs 1 pages, and you will complete roughly 200 fields.
You will not be charged for any of these; the whole set is free. Before you start entering data, save the file to your computer and open it there. Fields behave far more reliably in a desktop reader than in a browser preview.
What the form asks for
- 1. Drawing number.
- 2. Date.
- 3. Reference/file/study number.
- 4. Operation.
- 5. Organization work center.
- 6. Work unit.
- 7. Observer.
- 8. Name of operator/number.
- 9. Machine number/stock number.
- 10. Material.
- 11. Weight.
- 12. Quantity.
- 13. Stop time.
- 14. Start time.
- 15. Elapsed time (stop time minus start time).
- 16. Type of timing device.
- 17.a. Number, line 1.
- b. Element description.
- c. Readings. Time, column 1.
- Time, column 2.
- Time, column 3.
- Time, column 4.
- Time, column 5.
- Time, column 6.
Now that it is complete, send it where not stated or your local procedure says it goes. Before you do, make yourself a copy — scan it or save the file elsewhere. It costs you nothing and saves you the whole exercise if the original goes missing.
When DD Form 2042 references another form, search on the series and number. Because DD numbers are common to every military department, the number by itself identifies exactly one document.
Here is where people go wrong. They see a number in an instruction and download whichever form matches it. But DA and DD are separate systems — Army-specific in one case, Department-wide under not stated in the other — so check which series you were sent to before you take the file.
Do not archive this file and reuse it in a year. Forms are reissued as directives are revised, as data requirements shift, and as statutory notice text is amended. Your protection is simple: download fresh each time and confirm the edition date.
One thing this page does not do: tell you whether your submission will be accepted. We publish the document and explain how to complete it, and that is where our role ends. Nothing here is legal advice. Take questions about eligibility, applicability or procedure to not stated, to your servicing personnel office, or to the office named in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 2042?
- DD Form 2042, Work Measurement Time Study Worksheet (Snapback), December 1976
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?