After Henry Ford popularized the moving belt assembly concept, mass production took on a different function: that of being the grist mill for a consumerist society. Manufacturing became the supplier of mass goods for a use now discard later mentality of materialistic consumption, so therefore manufacturing itself became highly systematized, including the storage of materials and parts. Among the later concepts to aid in storage are cantilever racking to store long materials like pipes, lumber and beams; and materials cages with wire partitions to separate smaller items in large numbers. Both systems save storage space while keeping things highly organized for easier access and removal.

Storage of materials is sometimes considered as an art or science in itself, and good stores managers among many other names like materials inventory supervisors are most times difficult to find. For micro- to small-sized manufacturing concerns of lateral organizational relationships, storage management may be performed adequately by the enterprise manager himself if he can remember to keep in mind the top three elements of good storage management. These are:

Materials organization. Order is the name of the game. Used by almost all multiple-elements management efforts such as in information, materials organization involves setting up the materials so that they are easily found and accessed. Sorting and storing them by a certain system ---usage, requirement, size, product, type and so on--- is the overriding principle. The supermarket method of displaying the goods, by kind and usage, is a very good starting storage system when coupled with easy access and retrieval. Shelving and racking are excellent systems to aid in materials organization.

Inventory control. Materials are used and therefore stocks run low to be replenished. Keeping records of the amounts of what materials so their levels are known at anytime is a vital part of storage management. While this is now easier with computerization, a computer is still a machine limited in its functions to the instructions of its human, more especially when the computer program experiences some glitches. The human mind is still indispensable, and talent is often priceless.

Ordering and replenishment. In any kind of storage function, space is limited. In any type of manufacturing, the rate of materials usage is almost always known. No manufacturer wants to stock more than is needed, nor run out of inventory to use at anytime. The trick is to know when to replenish materials, from whom and in what quantities. This is a natural extension of inventory control, but still an element on its own, for without a good ordering and replenishment method the storage effort will end up with undesirable results of wrong materials, too many materials or, worst, no materials.

Storage management is not a matter to overlook in a manufacturing or even selling enterprise. Like an army that fights only as good as its supplies, it is the availability of materials to feed the production side that keeps the enterprise going. Without adequate materials control in storage management, there might be little production, if any at all.