Rubbermaid Shotgun Butterfly Mop
This project case study center around the successful design and development of an articulated, antimicrobial butterfly mop actuated using a shotgun-style pump action.
After months of development, including hiring an outside consulting firm to create the final Industrial Design CAD geometry in Alias, the development effort came to an abrupt halt when, during the final Industrial Design Review, tooling engineers refused to approve the design developed by one of the company’s lead designers.
With the entire project at risk and little time to recover, the industrial design work was handed to Coltzau Frost’s principal designer, at that time the most junior of Rubbermaid’s highly regarded in-house design team.
Starting from scratch, a fresh round of concept sketches centering around ease of manufacturability and low-cost assembly were hastily assembled and presented to the team. These weren’t finely polished computer renderings but a series of rough, blue pencil sketches illustrating various if somewhat limited development approaches.
Upon completion of the Pro/E CAD model, a prototype was fabricated and successfully tested. The mop was subsequently released under the Rubbermaid Cleaning Products division.