The development of automation technology in the storage field (including the main warehouse) can be divided into five stages: manual storage stage, mechanized storage stage, automated storage stage, integrated storage stage and intelligent automated storage stage.
In the late 1990s and in the 21st century, intelligent automated storage will be the main development direction of automation technology.

In the first stage, the conveying, storage, management and control of materials are mainly realized manually, and its real-time and intuitionistic features are obvious advantages.
The economic index of equipment investment in the initial stage of artificial storage technology is also superior.

The second phase, the material can pass all kinds of belt, industrial transport vehicles, robots, crane, stacker and elevator to moving and handling, use shelf tray and removable shelves storage material, through manual operation mechanical access device, with a limit switch, spiral mechanical brake and the operation of mechanical control devices such as monitor.
Mechanization to meet the speed, precision, height, weight, repeated access and handling and other requirements.

The third stage is the automated storage technology. The automated storage technology plays an important role in promoting the storage technology and development.
In the late 1950s and 1960s, automatic guided vehicle (AVG), automatic shelf, automatic access robot, automatic identification and automatic sorting system were successively developed and adopted.
In the 1970s and 1980s, rotary shelves, mobile shelves, roadways stacker and other handling equipment joined the ranks of automatic control, but at this time only the local automation of each equipment and their independent application, known as the "automation island."
Along with the development of computer technology, the focus turned to material control and management, real-time, coordination and integration, computer, data between patch, mechanical equipment controller and communication between host computer and they can timely summary, warehouse computer record orders in a timely manner and the delivery time, according to inventory, supply planners can easily make a decision, they know what is the production and book what goods, what time to send what goods, management personnel to understand the supply and demand.
The application of information technology has become an important pillar of storage technology.

In the late 1970s and 1980s, automation technology was used more and more in the field of production and distribution. Obviously, "automation island" needed to be integrated, so the concept of "integrated system" was formed.
In the integrated system, the organic cooperation of the whole system makes the overall benefit and strain capacity of production greatly exceed the sum of the independent benefits of each part.
As the center of material storage in THE CIMs-Computer Integrated Manufacturing System, Integrated warehouse technology has attracted much attention.
Although people have noticed the system integration in the 1980s, there are not many integrated storage systems built in Our country.
The integrated system includes people, equipment and control system, and the three stages mentioned above are the foundation.

In the early 1970s, China began to study the use of roadway stacker three-dimensional warehouse.
In 1980, China's first automated stereoscopic warehouse, which was developed and built by the Institute of Automation of Beijing Machinery Industry and other units, was put into operation in Beijing Automobile Factory.
Since then, stereoscopic warehouses have developed rapidly in China.
According to incomplete statistics, at present, China has built nearly 300 three-dimensional warehouses, of which more than 30 are fully automatic three-dimensional warehouses.
China's automated warehouse technology has realized the integration with other information decision-making systems, is doing intelligent control and fuzzy control research work, automatic hose clamp assembly machine.