The client was a manufacturing consultancy. Their client was large producer of narrow fabrics (ribbons/tapes/webbings and straps) in a large variety of materials thickness and widths. The client wound finished fabrics onto cardboard spools made up from side cheeks and a range of standard width card tube mandrels. The assembly of these spools was time consuming and fiddly. The flat card side cheeks were prone to distortion caused by changes in humidity and poor handling and this caused problems in winding the spools.

The brief was to design a spool that could be quickly and intuitively assembled around the standard width card tubes and which would remain dimensionally stable. A design was developed that featured one component which would assemble to itself with or without a central card tube mandrel. The part was designed using 3D CAD and manufactured from CAD data and control drawing.