Being a member of the building products industry, I sometimes hear and read stories that the general public does not have access to. For the most part, I read these in various trade magazines.

I recently read a very interesting story about Pfister Faucets (aka Pfister Pfaucets). Pfister is the number three player in sink faucets, behind Delta and Moen. In recent years, they have gained some awareness by poking a little fun at their own name, which is pronounced "Fister".

Anyway, Pfister has two major manufacturing facilities in North America. One is in Des Moines, Iowa and the other is in Monterrey, Mexico. Both plants make largely the same products and both plants sell and ship a great deal of product to Lowes stores, Pfister's largest retail customer.

Well, this happened back in mid June but Lowes stores across the country reported that the shipments they were receiving from Pfister were infested with ants when they would open the boxes. Initially, Pfister figured that the infestation had to be starting either in Monterrey or Des Moines but, upon further investigation, they found that, simultaneously, shipments arriving at Lowes stores across the United States from both Pfister plants were infested with ants.

They have since taken care of the issue but it still has Pfister executives scratching their heads over how it could have happened that, simultaneously, both plants had ant problems that reached their customers. They had never before had anything like this happen at even one of their plants let alone at both plants at the same time.

What will this incident go down in history as, you may ask?



Why, "The Pfisterhood of the Traveling Ants," of course!















(I am so sorry. This is entirely made up.)