Volume 5, Number 1     January/February 1997

  Technology Transfer

NASA And Red Pepper Launch Hot Item

Shuttle software technology launches company's value to $225 million.

NASA TECHNOLOGY THAT SCHEDULES pre-launch work for the Space Shuttle fleet is the foundation of a San Mateo, California software company whose market value grew to $225 million in just three years.

The Red Pepper Software Company spiced up NASA's Ground Processing Scheduling System (GPSS) to help some of America's Fortune 500 companies respond to customer demands and maximize company profits.

	Red Pepper Software Company of San Mateo, CA spiced up NASA's ground processing scheduling system (GPSS) for private industry and watched its market value grow to $225 million. GPSS schedules the thousands of activities that ready the Space Shuttle fleet for launch at Kennedy Space Center.

GPSS is a software scheduling tool that helps planners manage the thousands of overlapping activities that simultaneously prepare the four Space Shuttle orbiters for launch.

While technicians repair the heat-shielding tiles on an orbiter, others may be modifying the crew module or installing a payload. GPSS reacts to any refurbishment scheduling glitches with real-time solutions, minimizing a possible domino effect on the fleet and reducing processing costs.

Now, Texas Instruments, Bausch & Lomb, Coors and Hewlett Packard are applying GPSS via Red Pepper. "We were looking for a tool to help manage our worldwide business transactions from one facility in California," said Tom Davis of Hewlett Packard. "We've found that tool in Red Pepper's Response Agents."

Response Agents are the commercial software systems inspired by GPSS. Supplementing existing transactional and shop control systems, they help production and distribution centers satisfy customer demands by optimizing materials, capacity and labor in real-time.

"Response Agents are a new, proactive approach to planning," said Monte Zweben, president of Red Pepper. "Though we have done much work to bring this technology to the commercial market, the roots of this growing product line can be traced directly back to NASA research."

Zweben lead the GPSS development team from Ames Research Center, Kennedy Space Center and Lockheed Space Operations Company while holding a position as deputy branch chief at Ames. Zweben envisioned a commercial version of GPSS with similar benefits to industry after watching it reduce Shuttle turnaround time and costs and increase operational efficiency. Zweben left NASA in 1993 to establish Red Pepper, and Kennedy granted the company the GPSS copyright license in August 1993.

Red Pepper's quick success attracted the attention of People Soft Inc., a worldwide client/server business software provider. People Soft recently acquired Red Pepper, which employed more than 100 at the time of the merger, at a market value of $225 million.

While Red Pepper accelerates investments in research looking for broader applications of GPSS, NASA focuses on its intended use. "Though we are very proud of KSC's role in this project's commercial success, we will continue to enhance GPSS for support of future vehicle processing applications," said NASA GPSS Task Manager Nicole Passonno.

For more information, contact Joel Wells at KSC.
Call 407/867-2468, Fax 407/867-2692, E-mail: Joel.Wells-1@ksc.nasa.gov
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