465 and 3 801 401 a plurality of bobbins are simultaneously wound around a flatly held sheet of nonwoven fabric and the thus wound sheet rolled into bundle form again the unrestrained fibers tend to splay apart during the forming process resulting in membrane damage and broken hollow fiber membranes with the helical wrap the hollow fiber membranes are bundled and held closely together the hollow fiber membrane bundle handles like a consolidated yarn therefore hollow fiber membrane damage and breakage during the hollow fiber handling steps are essentially eliminated as a result of the closer packing of the hollow fiber membranes the overall permeator packing density is significantly increased with the helically wrapped hollow fiber membranes the higher packing density increases the productivity of a permeator the present invention can be used to consolidate dry or wet hollow fiber membranes during bobbin winding as well as wet hollow fiber membranes during spinning to improve the production and performance of membrane separation modules the use of the present invention has demonstrated significant and even crucial improvements in bundle performance for gas separation modules the present invention is also applicable to other hollow fiber membrane systems such as those for reverse osmosis referring now.