Sometimes the Most Valuable Thing We Have Isn’t Inventory. It’s Knowledge.

​Last week, a customer texted us a few pictures of an old faucet they were trying to identify.

This happens all the time. One of the things we have done for decades is help plumbing wholesalers identify old and unusual repair parts. Sometimes the answer is easy. Sometimes it takes a little digging.

This one took me back a few generations.

When I looked at the pictures, I immediately recognized the handle. I was pretty sure it was an old Gerber handle.

But I didn't recognize the stem.

There was something familiar about the handle beyond simply knowing it was Gerber. I remembered seeing it in some of the work my grandfather had done years ago when he was developing his Plumber's Index to Concealed Fittings.


​So I started looking.

​Going Back to the Original Research

We still have copies of my grandfather's Plumber's Index, so that was the first place I went.

I couldn't find what I was looking for.

Then I remembered something else.

We have an old three-ring binder containing many of my grandfather's original handwritten drawings and notes from when he was researching and developing the index.

These weren't polished catalog drawings. They were his working notes—hand-drawn on graph paper with dimensions, thread sizes, spline counts, and whatever other information he thought might be important.

I pulled out the binder and started looking.

When I got to the Gerber Brass page, there it was.
The handle.

My grandfather had drawn the exact same cross handle that was in the pictures our customer had just texted us.

That confirmed that my memory was right.

But there was still a problem.

The stem on that page wasn't the stem in the customer's pictures.
​​

Then I Turned the Page

Unlike the finished Plumber's Index, the pages in this old binder are arranged alphabetically.

The next page was labeled Globe Brass.

And at the bottom of that page was another hand-drawn stem.

I looked at the drawing and then back at the customer's pictures.
​
There it was.

It was the stem.

The same basic design. The same configuration. The part we had been looking for was sitting in a drawing my grandfather had made decades ago.

There was another interesting piece to the story.

When my grandfather originally made these drawings, he already understood the connection between the two names. In his handwritten notes, he wrote that Gerber Brass was formerly Globe Brass, and elsewhere noted that Globe Brass was manufactured by Gerber Industries. That connection helped confirm that the Gerber handle and the Globe-labeled stem belonged together.

That is one of the things I love about looking through his old notes.

He wasn't just collecting part numbers.

He was learning.

He measured parts. He compared them. He drew them. He made notes. He corrected things when he learned something new.

He was building a body of knowledge.
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And decades later, we are still using it.

From Graph Paper to a Text Message

I couldn't help but think about the contrast.

My grandfather sat down years ago with an old plumbing fitting, a ruler or micrometer, a pencil and a piece of graph paper and carefully documented what he saw.

Last week, a customer pulled out a cellphone and texted us three pictures.

Technology has changed quite a bit in between.

But the knowledge still mattered.

Because my grandfather took the time to document that fitting all those years ago, we were able to identify what our customer had in front of them today.

And identifying it wasn't the end of the story.

Once we knew what the fitting was, we were also able to offer our customer a rebuild kit that they could offer to their customer.

An old faucet that could have easily become, "We don't know what that is," became something that could potentially be repaired.
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That is why I think this story says something important about what we do.

​Knowledge Is Part of Our Inventory

We have thousands and thousands of plumbing repair parts in our inventory.

That inventory is obviously valuable.

But there is another kind of inventory that doesn't sit in a bin or on a warehouse shelf.

It is the knowledge accumulated over generations.

It is knowing what an old handle looks like.

It is remembering that two manufacturers or brands were connected.

It is knowing which old book to pull off the shelf.

Sometimes it is even knowing that somewhere in an old three-ring binder there might be a hand-drawn picture of the exact part someone is holding in their hand.

That knowledge has been collected by my grandfather, my father, our team members and others who have spent their careers in the plumbing repair parts industry.

One of the challenges for our industry is making sure knowledge like that doesn't disappear.

Old manufacturers go away. Product lines are discontinued. Experienced people retire. Paper catalogs get thrown out. And slowly, information that everyone once knew becomes difficult to find.

That makes preserving it—and passing it on—even more important.

Last week was a pretty good reminder of that for me.

A customer sent us three pictures of an old faucet.

The answer took me to a drawing my grandfather made decades ago.

And that drawing helped us provide a solution to a customer today.

Sometimes the most valuable thing we have isn't inventory. It's knowledge.
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- Barry Walter, Jr.

CEO, Barry E. Walter Senior Company