To let you briefly understand what storage systems is about, think about your home private warehouse, your storeroom. What type of items are you going to store inside your storeroom? How are you going to place the items? Are the items accessible when you want to take it? How often you need to take the items from your storeroom? How long do you need to take an item? What type of storage system are you going to adopt? Just like your storeroom, planning a storage system for a warehouse need to consider much more factors and likewise every decision you made will affect the overall warehouse's operation and definitely the cost incurred.

• Physical characteristics of goods stocked, i.e. size, shape, weight, package, unit load weight.
• Contamination risks, i.e. isolation storage systems and protective packaging are been used.
• Hazardous factors, i.e. require more fire-security measures such as fire walls, advanced sprinkler installations (ESFR sprinklers), smoke detection, water screens, smoke evacuation hatches, smoke screens, sufficient fire hoses and hydrants.
• Deterioration factors.
• Value of the goods.
• Number of line items, e.g. high or low line items.
• Stock and throughput levels, e.g. turnover frequency, incoming and outgoing volumes.
• Capital availability, i.e. setting up a automated storage system or manual storage system.
• Free height of the building, i.e. the combination of various parameters such as price of land, the height of the racks or pallets, the speed at which goods can be handled at higher positions and the extra costs of a higher building.
• Flatness of the floor, i.e. the influence of logistic systems on floor requirements.
• Bearing power of the floors, i.e. able to bear heavy loads.

(From the top to the bottom pictures: dangerous goods; perishable product; ship spare; metal hose; fire security measures)

Characteristics of the available storage methods

Below shows two examples of storage methods on how products can be located and arranged:

Randomized Storage (or floating slot storage)

• Places items in the closest available slot, bin or rack, when it becomes empty.


• Items are retrieved on a first-in, first-out (FIFO) basis.
  

Dedicated Storage (or fixed-slot storage)

• Products are stored in permanent locations


• Three methods can be used to implement this approach:
  i. Part number sequence
  ii. Usage rates
  iii. Activity levels