The Power of One Idea

The Second Harvest Heartland warehouse is built for movement. Food arrives, is sorted and tracked, then continues its journey to food shelves and dinner tables across Minnesota and western Wisconsin. Behind that movement is a team of 45 warehouse employees helping to distribute 150 million pounds of food each year.

When Marcus McClain joined Second Harvest Heartland in 2023 as an Associate Finance Inventory Coordinator, he brought years of experience in inventory and material handling. Before long, he began noticing opportunities to make one part of the work more efficient.

One challenge kept coming back: inventory counts.  

Inventory counts often meant long spent manually counting pallets of food. Each month required detailed inventory audits, and once a year the entire warehouse completed a comprehensive inventory count. The work was essential, but Marcus began asking one simple question, “What if there was a better way?”

“We spend a lot of late nights here doing inventory,” Marcus says.  

Rather than accepting the process as it was, Marcus started experimenting.  

Using bright red masking tape and a black Sharpie, he developed a visual inventory system to label pallets with three key identifying numbers. The system allows him to quickly identify inventory without recounting every pallet from scratch, dramatically reducing the time it takes to complete inventory counts.

“Prior to this system, I would literally have to take down every single pallet and count it,” Marcus says. “It would take a full day shift. Now? It's probably down to two hours.”

Marcus McClain in the Second Harvest Heartland Warehouse and an example of his visual inventory system 

For Marcus, the project became more than a way to improve inventory. It also reflected the way he naturally approaches his work. “This process is a part of who I am. It's an internal thing that has taken an external form."

The system is one example of the creativity and innovative thinking Marcus brings to his work every day.

To Marcus, innovation means “bringing new ideas, adapting to challenges, thinking outside the box.” No one assigned Marcus the project; he simply saw an opportunity, explored an idea, and took action.  

Marcus hopes others will continue to build on his idea. “My dream is to figure out how to get this process implemented for everything in the warehouse,” he says. “Somebody has an idea, somebody else builds on it, and together we make it better.”

His advice to anyone who has a great idea is simple: "Go for it. Try it. And let's see how the process goes. Over time, if you work the process, you can work out the flaws or find the perfections in it and just keep going. That's how we evolve."