NASA Spin-off Turns Into a "Red Pepper" Success Story
Volume 97 No. 1 ---- Spring 1997
 Former NASA Ames Research Center (NASA/ARC) Autonomy Technology employee hits the big time with successful commercialization of spin-off. Back in the mid 1980s, three years of fundamental research in "constraint-based scheduling" lead by NASA/ARC Principal Investigator Monte Zweben, resulted in an automated scheduling system or Ground Processing Scheduling System (GPSS). The GPSS was adopted for use in scheduling of Shuttle Orbiter refurbishing. According to NASA/HQ's Dr. Mel Montemerlo, estimated savings to NASA with the implementation of this system averaged $4M per year, resulting in a technology development payback period of less than 12 months. Mr. Zweben left NASA in 1993 to establish Red Pepper Software, a small start-up company that soon became known as a leading provider of manufacturing and supply chain optimization solutions. Just last month, Mr. Zweben announced a merger of his company with PeopleSoft, Inc. (NASDAQ: PSFT), a leading worldwide provider of client/server business software. PeopleSoft will issue 2.975 million shares of common stock to acquire all of the outstanding shares and stock options of Red Pepper in a transaction to be accounted for as a pooling of interests. The estimated dollar value of the exchange is roughly $300M. "NASA should be very proud of this technology accomplishment," said Dr. Montemerlo, further suggesting that this spin-off success may be the largest such commercialization in NASA's history. Montemerlo estimated the potential market for intelligent scheduling software at $1.5B by the year 2000. In recent communications with NASA, Monte Zweben expressed confidence that "by 1998, all Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) business systems will have constraint-based planning embedded in or integrated with their systems. Artificial Intelligence has hit the big time." Zweben concluded his remarks by crediting NASA, "The technology has come a long way since GPSS - but its roots are firmly planted in the NASA research and development." Red Pepper, based in nearby San Mateo, CA, will continue to operate as an independent business unit following the merger. The transaction was expected to close in the last few weeks of 1996. Visit the Red Pepper web site for more details: http://www.pepper.com/press/merger.htm Story provided by:
Phil Herlth
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