This paper examines the effect of storage location configurations on dual command cycle times for the efficient operation of automated storage/retrieval systems. We use a contour line approach to determine storage location configurations. We present a contour line configuration generating scheme and a location indexing scheme. Given a contour line configuration, the location indexing scheme provides a unique priority to each location. The location priority is then used for determining the storage location of an incoming load. To investigate the effect of alternative contour line configurations on dual command cycle times, we perform a series of experiments under various storage policies.