AS/RS covers a range of architectures — mini-load systems for totes and cartons, unit-load cranes for full pallets, shuttle-based deep-lane storage — but they share the same operating reality: the system is a single point of failure for every process downstream of it. When the cranes stop, there's usually no manual fallback that comes close to matching the throughput.
That's what makes AS/RS maintenance a different discipline from maintaining a forklift or a conveyor: the preventive schedule genuinely has to be built from the OEM manual for that exact model, because the failure modes (rail misalignment, encoder drift, drive-belt fatigue) are specific to precision-guided automated equipment, not general material handling.