Investing in Motion: How a Bearings Leader Is Transforming with Digital Technology

What You’ll Learn:

How software integration, digital tools, automation and AI are influencing the evolution of bearings at SKF.
Why SKF initiated the separation of its automotive business from the industrial business.
In a joint endeavor with a high-precision machine tools manufacturer, SKF developed the Insight super-precision bearing system for monitoring load, temperature and vibration in a high-speed spindle during machining.

For SKF the journey of digital transformation began nearly 30 years ago. Back then the manufacturer of bearings, seals and lubrication systems took steps to venture beyond its traditional business model and started to acquire companies in the areas of condition monitoring and sensing.

Those early investments signaled the groundwork for an approach that would set the mechanical component manufacturer’s long-term trajectory. SKF today positions itself as a technology-driven company that’s leading the way in anticipating machinery health and optimizing performance by leveraging digital tools, sensors and analytics in its products and services.

It’s with good reason that bearings remain the staple. The global bearing market, a subsegment of the machinery industry valued at nearly SEK 500 billion (that’s well over $52 billion), is a critical segment of the machinery industry. With about 20% market share, SKF rubs shoulders with the likes of Schaeffler, The Timken Company, NSK, NTN and JTEKT.

According to the bearing maker’s 2024 Annual Report, growth is driven by demand from automotive, aerospace and industrial sectors, as well as emerging applications in renewable energy, electric vehicles (EVs) and smart infrastructure. More than 90% of SKF’s innovation portfolio is directed towards high-growth segments, establishing a foothold in markets where the megatrends of sustainability and electrification drive demand. A large emphasis is also placed on forging deeper digital connections to be closer to customers.

When SKF announced last year that the company had initiated a separation of its automotive business from the industrial business, the move demonstrated a strategic intent to focus on the distinct competencies and resource allocation in each market. In a press note, SKF President and CEO Rickard Gustafson confirms that the move provides strategic flexibility and allows the respective businesses to make independent business decisions and investments.

Featured here is the SKF sensorized super-precision bearing. SKF developed the SKF Insight Super-precision bearing system to assist DMG MORI in developing and validating this technology for their machining centers.

Algorithm-Based Solutions Are a Lever for Reducing Friction

Diving into the specifics of bearing engineering, it becomes obvious that mixing the physics of bearings with predictive maintenance has proven to be a powerful force multiplier. Bearings reveal fine details about how two metal surfaces interact while separated by a thin film of oil, explains Ölme. By modeling these details and converting them into algorithms, SKF’s engineers can predict how machinery will perform over the lifespan of the bearing.

Ölme illustrates this idea with an example from inside a gearbox: One model might estimate that a bearing will last seven years, while another bearing, under different stresses, could fail in just three weeks if maintenance is not performed.

She adds that SKF is keeping pace with the industry’s evolution by prioritizing digitalization, AI, quantum-inspired methods and sustainability, while harnessing sophisticated predictive technologies and integrates innovation that drives more reliable products. “We are in a movement here that is moving more quickly than ever with generative AI entering the scene,” says Ölme. “You know, software coding is becoming so much easier to reach with low-code, no-code developments. And of course, the computational power that’s available.”

And by integrating sensors and condition-monitoring technology into digital products, SKF can at once differentiate its products from those of competitors and create opportunities for entirely new markets.

Bearings are critical to rotating machinery and predictive intelligence is a crucial factor in maximizing uptime and reliability. “That’s where you need intelligence to predict the future of a gearbox, or windmill or train, or any system that relies on rotating components,” explains Ölme. “For us, it’s just bringing so many more possibilities to be even better at predicting the future.”

Annika Olme, CTO and senior vice president, Technology Development, SKF.

Advanced Technology Builds Customer-Facing Value and Operational Efficiency

Digital growth has advanced the customer experience, too. The company has developed tools over the past 15 years that include configurators for helping customers select the right bearings, calculation software for precise engineering and digital twins that integrate with customers’ gearbox or powertrain models. Ölme says that these advancements have created new levels of customer experience and maintains that advanced technologies will progressively become more entangled as AI starts to power interactions.

SKF has already introduced AI tools that answer technical questions instantly. “The SKF product assistant will answer any question through a generative AI interface [based on] any technical information that we publish,” says Ölme.

On the inside, AI is changing the way SKF operates in three key areas. The sales teams are using it for smart lead generation and customer data handling, product development is using AI through design automation and virtual testing, and operations and supply chain planning with AI in the background optimize manufacturing processes and logistics.

The effects have been considerable over the course of the past three years. “Everything is speeding up,” says Ölme. “We had to be on our toes. But the possibilities are so much greater.”

AI Accelerates the Evolution of Bearing Design

Advancements in bearing technology are persistent and integral to machinery performance. “The same bearing [from a decade ago] can today be used to do so much more,” Ölme says. “It can take more power. It can take more load. It can actually take more torque. And it’s always evolving everything, from the materials technology down to the actual bearing design and how you test it and how you validate it.”

SKF’s design automation has evolved to the point where application engineers and customers can collaboratively explore “what-if” scenarios. SKF’s digital product assistant is built on years of engineering application knowledge and can guide users through product specifications, detailed engineering data and comparisons. Design engineers may have questions, explains Ölme, and “they might say, ‘What if I change the load like this? Or what if I have this grease in the bearing? Will that change the lifetime, or will it affect the bearing?’”

In addition, virtual validation, supported by computational power, is expected to cut development cycles significantly. Ölme reckons that virtual validation is expected to reduce testing capacity by 50% over the next five years. These advancements speed up the rate and accuracy of work and enable SKF to come up with more specific solutions.

A Bearings Market in Perpetual Motion

The idea that bearing technology remains stagnant or that not much has changed since SKF’s founding in 1907 couldn’t be further from the truth, says Ölme.

Bearings have had many iterations over time. Look to their role in applications like gearboxes and railway sets that have prolonged their lifespans and increased time between maintenance. “Bearings can now last 5 million kilometers between maintenance stops instead of 1 million kilometers between maintenance stops,” says Ölme. “And what we see is that there’s so many things that are yet to discover.”

She points to an example of a collaboration with DMG Mori that integrated fiber optic sensors in bearings. In this joint-development, an SKF Insight Super-precision bearing system monitors load, temperature and vibration in a high-speed spindle during machining. DMG Mori was able to improve lubrication control, deliver exact load measurements and closed-loop control that maximizes performance and predicts failures well in advance.

Advances span materials selection, too, from steel to ceramics for electric vehicle capabilities, as well as interior design and detailing of vehicles.

The key point, Ölme says, is SKF’s deep expertise across all stages of bearing development: “The big thing that really stands out here is also having all the knowledge from research through all the development phases—research about the steel that is used, the minute details about the interior design of the bearing, using other materials than steel, like ceramic materials, and to make sure that you can run electric vehicles that require electric insulation without them breaking down.”

These capabilities collectively ensure SKF remains at the forefront of bearing design and is fully equipped to anticipate the industry’s evolving demands.