The Quest to Achieve Perfect Cube

Bulk storage was the earliest form of warehouse storage, where goods were stored in large quantities and stacked together without any division or arrangement. This approach offered limited selectivity, as products were usually accessed on a first-in, first-out basis, making it unsuitable for managing a wide range of SKUs. Moreover, bulk storage was inefficient in utilizing warehouse space as it left voids between the goods and the ceiling. Here selectivity was the challenge, which was solved by the use of racks. 

Selective pallet racks were introduced in the mid-20th century as an alternative to bulk storage. They enabled storage of multiple SKUs in a small area, providing a higher level of accessibility and organization. The racks were designed to accommodate palletized goods, and forklift trucks were used to load and unload them. However, the selective pallet racks were still limited in their storage capacity, as they required aisles between the racks for forklift maneuverability. Here wastage of cubic space in aisles was the challenge, which was solved using dense racks with shuttle system by sacrificing a little selectivity. 

The pallet shuttle systems solved the problems from selective pallet racks improvement to selective pallet racks, it allows pallets to be stored deep inside the racks with the help of a shuttle that moves within the rack and transfers pallets from one end to another. The shuttle can be used with a range of racking systems, such as drive-in racks and push-back racks. The system minimizes the need for aisles, thus. enabling maximum space utilization. But what about picking small items and not full pallet picks? And here the idea carton shuttle system is to rescue. 

The carton shuttle systems was developed to improve the storage and picking of small and medium-sized items. It is an automated system that uses shuttles to transport boxes and bins between racks and picking stations. The shuttles work within a grid of storage units and use lifts to move up and down the storage structure. The system offers high throughput and is suitable for warehouses with a high volume of small items. Still there were volumetric gaps in the storage for clearances requirement in the storage which reduced the cubic space utilization, and now comes the grid-based tote storage systems. 

The grid-based tote storage system is the latest addition to the race to achieve perfect cube. This system uses robots to pick and deliver goods to the picking stations, eliminating the need for human intervention in the warehouse. It can even fill the uneven spaces in the warehouses. The robots move on a grid of bins arranged in a cube shape and can access any bin without any aisle space. The system's compact design enables warehouse operators to store more goods in a smaller area and increase the throughput of the warehouse.