The Software designed for organizing data and providing the mechanism for storing, maintaining, and retrieving that data on a physical medium (i.e., a database). A DBMS separates data from the application programs and people who use the data and permits many different views of the data.

​Reference: APICS Dictionary, 16th edition

​The function of determining the need to replenish inventory at branch warehouses. A time-phased order point approach is used where the planned orders at the branch warehouse level are “exploded” via MRP logic to become gross requirements of the supplying source. In the case of multilevel distribution networks, this explosion process can continue down through the various levels of regional warehouses (master warehouse, factory, warehouse, etc.) and become input to the master production schedule. Demand on the supplying sources is recognized as dependent and standard MRP logic applies.