This article analyzes whether an array of recent PeopleSoft, Inc. (NASDAQ: PSFT), moves will finally and lastingly establish it as a serious contender in the manufacturing enterprise resource planning (ERP) and supply chain management (SCM) space. These moves are discussed in detail in Part One of this note. In a nutshell, we have been looking positively at PeopleSoft's mega acquisition of J.D. Edwards ever since its announcement in June, albeit not overly enthusiastically due to its inevitable challenges down the track. True, the PeopleSoft-J.D. Edwards merger was in great part about retaining its big five (or big four, or big three) seat and about the need to be bigger within shrinking market opportunities.

However, even before the mega merger PeopleSoft had already set it sights on a bigger manufacturing presence. First off, a year ago or so, PeopleSoft appointed Carol Ptak to head up its global manufacturing division. Ptak was the past president of APICS, high-profile manufacturing expert with a number of acclaimed published works, and the co-author of the bestselling book Necessary but Not Sufficient (with another recognized theory of constraints [TOC] guru E. Goldratt),. At its recent PeopleSoft Connect US and European user conferences, PeopleSoft repeatedly pointed out that it has been very serious about the manufacturing industry. In hindsight, Ptak's hiring followed up by the high profile acquisition of mid-to-large ERP system developer J.D. Edwards this summer, and most recently demand flow and lean manufacturing software solution from JCIT, might indicate some deeply thought out process rather than a number of impulse initiatives from the past.

Ptak is the VP & Global Industry Executive but the actual relevant product development is still driven by the SCM product pillar under Patrick Quirk. He is one of the other key manufacturing personnel that PeopleSoft has added in the last few years, prior to the J.D Edwards acquisition. The whole move to lean manufacturing has been driven by several people and Craig Conway personally recruited Quirk to drive manufacturing applications development. Quirk is the VP and general manager of PeopleSoft's supply chain management division. He leads the strategic direction, product development, global marketing and customer support of PeopleSoft's supply chain management solutions. Prior to joining PeopleSoft, Quirk was the VP of Strategic Accounts at i2 Technologies, where he managed deployments at Dell, IBM, HP, and Sun Microsystems.

To be fair, PeopleSoft, although known primarily for its HR, financials, and CRM software; and its publicized leadership in pure Internet architecture, had manufacturing-oriented ERP functionality way back in its PeopleSoft 7 release. The functionality was initially built in the mid 1990s, when industry was moving away from traditional materials requirements planning (MRP) or advanced planning and scheduling (APS)-based inventory management to more actual demand-driven management.

Although increasingly professing manufacturing interests, PeopleSoft in 2002 still saw the strongest focus on the financial services sector, followed by professional services, health care and higher education, and then manufacturing, distribution, and retail. Nevertheless, the vendor had manufacturing functional coverage within its ERP suite and was able to claim coverage of many common manufacturing styles. Looking at the high-tech sector, for example, it had the support for multi-mode manufacturing, global supply chain visibility, and APS optimization. The PeopleSoft industrial products offering handles mixed-mode manufacturing dealing with make-to-order (MTO), private label, custom-made, original equipment manufacturer (OEM), and catalog-standard components, whereas its utilities suite focuses more on the web-based solutions and analytics for distributed asset management and optimization. Even with all this functionality, the vendor had not invested as much in the people and execution as it had in for example, the financial and service sectors.

Furthermore, the elements of lean manufacturing functionality such as "flat" bills of materials (BOMs), product family planning, and "phantom" BOMs, which were introduced within the PeopleSoft 7.5 release as the PeopleSoft Flow Production System (based on the Toyota Production System), had never made it into PeopleSoft 8 due to all too common "other priorities," which again might testify to PeopleSoft's earlier non-manufacturing focus.