William LaPlante, under secretary for acquisition and sustainment at the Department of Defense and a 2024 Wash100 awardee, said advancing the use of the Competitive Advantage Pathfinders, or CAP, process could enable DOD to accelerate the transition of defense capabilities to program-of-record status and into the production phase.
In a commentary published Wednesday in National Defense Magazine, LaPlante wrote that his office runs the CAP process under the newly established Acquisition Integration and Interoperability Office.
“The goal is to flip the equation on process improvement: identify technology potentially useful to multiple military services stuck somewhere in or among the stool/triangle’s three legs,” he noted.
According to the defense acquisition executive, CAPs could help speed up capability development and bridge the “valley of death” by “getting representatives — and buy-in — from the resources, requirements and acquisition communities (the legs of the stool/triangle) together to address whatever might be the cause of the delay, be it funding, contract rules or inter-service concurrence.”
“Having resolved one issue, they move onto the next challenge,” LaPlante added.
In this article, the defense under secretary discussed how the CAP process could enable a service branch to adapt and transition a capability to another military branch without requiring a new budget cycle or program.
“Through CAPs, we can vastly accelerate these processes, turning what was a lethal valley into a flatter — though still bumpy — plain, and thus help secure military advantage for the next generation,” LaPlante stated.