ABSTRACT
Many software vendors made the shift rapidly-in name only. ERP had the distinct benefit from a marketing perspective of minimizing the continued association with MRP II. MRP II was quickly shunted aside in a flurry of
printing new brochures carrying the ERP imprimatur. True, some went to the trouble of adding GUI “front-ends,” which, in essence, simply put a pretty face to the same old character-based, “green-screened” systems. And a few companies began a more thorough reengineering of their systems. But in my mind, the real opportunity lay in starting from a clean slate to redesign from the ground up a truly new class of manufacturing software. This was the vision that inspired me to make that long drive to Ocean City, Maryland, Memorial Day weekend of 1992.
