The number of permutations of {a,b,c,d,e} is 120. So, there is a theoretical max for the number of combinations (because you want uniqueness of the permutations for a particular person across all combinations). Can we achieve that theoretical maximum. It seems to me that if we start with some list of all permutations, rotate that list by an appropriate amount for each person, then each combination will be unique.
To demonstrate, I'll use three letters to save space:
perms = Permutations[Take[Alphabet[], 3]]
(* {{"a", "b", "c"}, {"a", "c", "b"}, {"b", "a", "c"}, {"b", "c", "a"}, {"c", "a", "b"}, {"c", "b", "a"}} *)
TableForm[
Map[StringJoin, NestList[RotateRight, perms, 4], {-2}],
TableDirections -> Row,
TableHeadings -> {{"Person 1", "Person 2", "Person 3", "Person 4", "Person 5"}, {"Combinations", "\[VerticalEllipsis]"}}]

Now, I'm not totally sure I understood your constraints. Maybe you meant that no permutation should show up more than once anywhere. Or maybe your comment about "order of letters" being unique means something different than what I thought. If so, please clarify your constraints, and maybe provide a sample output for a smaller set of permutations.