To get back to the roots of the automated storage industry, one must hearken back more than 100 years. The beginnings of automates storage centers around the need to store information. Think of a library with tens of thousands of books.
Before computers, the location of each book needed to be placed on a small paper card. These thousands of cars needed to be organized into hundreds of small drawers. That in turn required banks of wooden cabinets to house all the drawers.
By the 1950s, the amount of information across just about all industries became almost astronomically enormous. Since all files, records, receipts and more needed to be printed on paper and filed in an organized way, new ways to store and retrieve all that paper was a necessity.
This led to the creation of gigantic vertical shelving systems that could be rotated up and down. Many of them were configured with electric motor driven mechanisms to make getting at the proper drawer easy and convenient.
In the 1960s advanced in mechanics and computer systems made automating storage units possible. It quickly became apparent that just about anything that required storage could be handled economically and efficiently with automated systems. Rather than requiring human labor to traverse large warehouses to place and retrieve stored items, machines could be programmed to get the job done smoothly and efficiently.
Today automated storage is not only big business, but a critical infrastructure component across many sectors, from storing food to nuts and bolts. For the food industry, refrigerated storage is a primary need. This led to the development of what today are called ASRS or AS/RS computer-controlled systems.
The most advanced system not only vastly reduce the need for human labor, but also eliminate the need for fork lifts, reduce floor space and pallets that need to be frequently replaced.
