Importance of Database Management System (DBMS) and Transportation Management System (TMS) in MIS

This research project submission discusses the importance of Database Management System (DBMS) and Transportation Management System (TMS) in Management Information System (MIS). It explains the components of DBMS, its architecture, and its implication in managing new generation database. It also highlights the advantages of TMS in transportation logistics and its synchronized perspective in smart cities.

Running head: RESEARCH PROJECT SUBMISSION 2
5.3 Research Project Submission 2
Prem Raj Manoahaar
Introduction to Management Information Systems – MGMT 221
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

1RESEARCH PROJECT SUBMISSION 2
Database Management System (DBMS)
The system software tool which helps to create, manage, modify and retrieve data is
known as Database Management System (DBMS). It consists of a list of programs that provides
to organize and manage a stack of related records (Gouhar, 2017).
The most common database management software is MS Access. IN addition to this,
DBASE, Excel are used as well to store meaningful data. DBMS offers a wide range of
advantages to the users regarding database management. These advantages are the importance or
significance of DBMS in the field of Management Information System (MIS). The research
shows various improvisations of the database like improved data security and enhanced data
integrity. Moreover, its several software applications are essentially useful in almost every
business situations to get proper maintenance and control of huge amount of data. It also helps in
better decision making and maximum user productivity. The business related data are secured
properly to avoid any data security breaches with the help of access control, encryption,
authentication, and data backups. DBMS are useful in telecom, banking, sales and many other
industries for efficient access of data and data administration (Dagli, 2014).
There are three levels of database implementation which are External levels, Conceptual
level, and Internal level. External level is the user level which gives maximum level of data
abstraction. The Conceptual level is known as the logical level which is used by the application
developers and Database administrators. It utilizes simple data structure to describe the database.
Lastly, the Internal level or the physical level provides the minimum data abstraction and
explains exact storing of the data in the data structure (Gouhar, 2017).
Database uses a process through which database is retrieved using DBMS by applying
database application programs and these are presented to the users. The primary components of

2RESEARCH PROJECT SUBMISSION 2
DBMS can be represented with the help of the diagram of Figure 1 which is shown in the
Appendix.
DBMS records all the information in the form of tables with rows and columns. These
tables are known as relations. The row in a table is termed as Tuple. A tuple holds a complete
record of data and the number of tuples are called the cardinality of the relation. The column is
known as an attribute in a relation. An attribute stores similar types of data. The frequency of
attributes is called the degree of the relation (Gouhar, 2017).
The research proceeds with the implementation of DBMS in the field of Big Data and
cloud computing. The universal DBMS architecture is a five-layered hierarchical model which is
encapsulated with the database manipulation language SQL. From Layer1 (L1) to Layer4 (L4),
the architecture is present in a cluster form in every machine. A SQL layer is covered in the
outermost layer. This SQL is responsible to access and fetch the database. In case of web
environment, database partitioning is done in several cheap machines and the data is horizontally
distributed in the network. Besides, vertical “shredding” and a combination of vertical and
horizontal data distributions are used as well in 3-lyered Hadoop software stack (Pokorný, 2013).
Another research talks about the next generation version of DBMS which deals with anti-
caching technique in the on-line transaction processing (OLTP) in order to improve disk
performance which lacks due to heavily-encoded data storage on disk. The anti-caching provides
high-performance of disk by moving cold data into disk when the disk size grows (DeBrabant et
al., 2013).
The above discussion concludes that DBMS is an utmost important in managing huge
amount database. The essay discusses all the components of database along with its description
in architecture and its implication in managing new generation database.

3RESEARCH PROJECT SUBMISSION 2
Transportation Management System (TMS)
Transportation Management System (TMS) can be considered as a part of both Supply
chain management and Enterprise resource system and it deals with transportation operations. It
is an important module of MIS as it plays a vital role in reducing cost and enhancing shipment
efficiency to gain improved real-time transit tracking facility and intensified customer service
(Laudon & Laudon, 2015).
This platform is developed with an aim to manage shipping process of the e-commerce
companies and other distribution organizations in the best way. TMS controls the entire shipping
process- from quoting to delivery. It utilizes the process application, analytics and process
optimization. The TMS primarily contributes assistance in transportation logistics within SCM
for any shipping organization (Laudon & Laudon, 2015). The basic advantages of TMS are listed
below:
i. Customer relationship management (CRM), Supplier relationship management
(SRM), order and warehouse management, and purchasing systems are united
with the help of TMS to boost the domestic shipment in the most efficient way.
ii. Audit processing and automated freight payment are used during invoicing to
reduce the invoice errors.
iii. Inventory management got better control by real-time tracking of shipments and
monitoring the orders’ lifecycle.
iv. TMS uses advanced software provided by the leading vendors like Oracle,
Infor/GT Nexus, and SAP that offers elaborated visibility into the transportation
data and the metrics to find out the existence of any discrepancy (Wood, Reiners
& Pahl, 2015).

4RESEARCH PROJECT SUBMISSION 2
In addition to all these benefits, TMS software helps to optimize the shipment process by
allowing the facility of individual logins and creating master bill. In a process managed
by TMS, also provide accurate prediction of the delivery time. The demand for the
implementation of this forecasting technique is increasing highly with the expansion of e-
commerce industry. Moreover, robust TMS provides extensive insights about the
shipment procedures and real-time reporting (Wood, Reiners & Pahl, 2015).
The research moves forward with the explanation of the synchronized perspective
of TMS in smart cities. It is challenging to supervise the transportation infrastructure in
smart cities. The components for maintaining the infrastructure are smart technology,
smart services and developed management. The system should be based on green
application like reduced use of fuel and conventional energy resources and the system
should be controlled with real-time application (Masek et al., 2016).
The computer devices are required to manage transportation and storage of goods
and they need to be configured for storing the data regarding the transportation. The TMS
can include database and the server for managing the transportation and storage of goods.
It communicates with several system devices over the communication interface. A
diagram in the Appendix (Figure 2) represents the process of a goods transport system
where the package control device manages the handling of packages by establishing
communication with the server during transport session (Waris & Paloheimo, 2017).
The above discussion concludes that the TMS has significant impact in managing
the transportation logistics. It provides assistance and coordination for shipping, real-time
tracking, and freight delivering. The entire logistics process is managed using advanced
software in computer devices including servers over communication interface.

5RESEARCH PROJECT SUBMISSION 2
References
Dagli, V. R. Database Management System.
DeBrabant, J., Pavlo, A., Tu, S., Stonebraker, M., & Zdonik, S. (2013). Anti-caching: A new
approach to database management system architecture. Proceedings of the VLDB
Endowment, 6(14), 1942-1953.
Gouhar, A. (2017). Database Management System. International Journal of Engineering Science,
11766.
Laudon, K. C., & Laudon, J. P. (2015). Management information systems (Vol. 8). Prentice Hall.
Masek, P., Masek, J., Frantik, P., Fujdiak, R., Ometov, A., Hosek, J., ... & Misurec, J. (2016). A
harmonized perspective on transportation management in smart cities: The novel IoT-
driven environment for road traffic modeling. Sensors, 16(11), 1872.
Pokorný, J. (2013). New database architectures: Steps towards big data processing. In
Proceedings of the IADIS International Conference Intelligent Systems and Agents (pp.
3-10).
Waris, H. P., & Paloheimo, H. L. (2017). U.S. Patent No. 9,721,224. Washington, DC: U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office.
Wood, L. C., Reiners, T., & Pahl, J. (2015). Manufacturing and logistics information systems. In
Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, Third Edition (pp. 5136-5144).
IGI Global.

6RESEARCH PROJECT SUBMISSION 2
End users
Database Applications
Database Management System
Database
Appendix
Figure 1
Source: As created by the Author

7RESEARCH PROJECT SUBMISSION 2
Figure 2: Diagram showing an illustrative goods transport system
Source: (Waris & Paloheimo, 2017)