Storage has always been an important aspect of economic development. For manufacturers, strategic warehousing offered a way to reduce holding or dwell time of materials and parts. On the outbound side of manufacturing, warehouses can be used to create product assortments for customer shipment. An important charge in warehousing is maximum flexibility. Ideally a warehouse will simultaneously provide economic and service benefits.
Warehouses offer many economic benefits for companies. One economic benefit of a warehouse is derived from the ability to consolidate products from a number of production plants into large, consolidated shipments delivered to customers. Also, big shipments from production plants are often broken into smaller shipments and arranged for local delivery.