1. A method for staging items in a manufacturing environment, the method comprising: defining attributes of staging locations in a distribution area of the manufacturing environment; defining a set of staging strategies for use in the distribution area of the manufacturing environment; receiving a manufactured item in the distribution area and obtaining characteristics of the manufactured item; comparing the obtained characteristics of the manufactured item to the set of staging strategies to select the staging strategy to apply to the manufactured item; applying the selected staging strategy to the manufactured item to assign the manufactured item to storage in one of the staging locations in the distribution area based on matching the obtained characteristics of the manufactured item to the defined attributes of the one of the staging locations; and, applying space optimization usage logic to the assigned staging location to determine a storage position for the manufactured item in the assigned staging location based on container characteristics of the manufactured item.