SKF Australia has expanded its local footprint with the opening of new facilities in Perth and Brisbane – allowing the company to better support its customers both locally and internationally.
The Swedish-born business, which is the world’s largest bearing manufacturer, has been producing bearings, seals, and lubrication systems to reduce friction since 1907.
Specialising in engineering, maintenance, condition monitoring, and remanufacturing for full life cycle management, it’s now represented in 130 countries around the world.
SKF officially set up shop in Australia in 1908 and has continued to grow its presence and experience in the local market ever since.
Connected and efficient
At SKF’s Circular Solution Centres, the team refurbishes bearings and other rail products, handling all aspects of the process –including cleaning, polishing, inspection and measurement, replacement of worn parts, lubrication and sealing – to restore bearings to required specifications. Between the two new centres, SKF has capacity to refurbish in excess of 35,000 bearings per year.
Local workshop capabilities include the refurbishment of axleboxes, bearing units, housings and related components, for both passenger and freight rail applications. It processes more than 1000 axleboxes per year.
SKF’s new facility in Forrestfield, Western Australia features a large, state-of-the-art rail bearing remanufacturing factory and warehousing space.
It officially opened its doors in early 2025 and primarily serves SKF’s Western Australian customers. The 5 Green Star-rated facility also represents SKF’s commitment to sustainability.
“About 40 per cent of our power is generated by solar, and the remainder sourced from the grid is all green energy,” said SKF railway engineer Stephen Fasolo.
Another recent development for SKF in Australia is the relocation of its East Coast workshop from Williamstown in Victoria to new premises at Eagle Farm in Brisbane.
“We’re happy to have grown our team, with five new people brought on to work in the Eagle Farm facility and one staff member transferring over from our Williamstown facility,” said Alistair King, East Coast Circular Solutions Centre Manager at SKF Australia.
“The new facility helps us to support our customers with fast turnaround times and reliable service.”
Vishesh Arora, Head of Services at SKF Australia, said the new facility is triple the size of the old one.
“The total building size is about 2000 square metres, with the warehouse and workshop space measuring 1680 square metres,” he said.
“This is much larger than where we were before in Williamstown, which was under 500 square metres. With more space, our throughput can be greater, and we now have a renewed, modular workshop.
“We are also now integrated with SKF’s broader industrial offering within the rail sector, giving us access to consumables, as well as more office and storage space.”
This allows SKF’s sales and service teams to sit together in the same office.
“This means better communication between those teams and benefits for our customers,” he added.
With the opening of the new facility, SKF has also reorganised its two workstations into a single streamlined operation, to be more efficient.
In addition, SKF has digitised some of its activities, introducing clear key metric dashboards that are monitored continuously.
“We now notice any bottlenecks that crop up, and we’re tracking machine availability and uptime,” Arora said. “We’re meeting 94 per cent of our key metrics since we started tracking them, which is a very good result.”
The Eagle Farm facility caters to customers in Queensland, South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania and New Zealand.
King said the move is good news for some of the company’s biggest customers.
“We’ve also improved turnaround times for some of our customers in New Zealand,” he added.
Cutting costs and emissions
With rail operators under pressure from rising costs and tighter greenhouse gas reduction targets, SKF is helping to extend bearing life and reduce waste without sacrificing performance.
Its refurbishment process enables up to 90 per cent of original bearing material to be reused, delivering a lower carbon footprint and about 70 per cent cost savings compared with purchasing new components.
“Bearing refurbishment is a fraction of the cost of purchasing new bearings, and the lead time is weeks, not months,” explained Gavin Acker, Segment Business Manager – Rail at SKF Australia.
The company also streamlines logistics through its “One-for-One” refurbishment model.
“If a customer sends us a pallet of 100 bearings, for example, they will always get 100 bearings back,” said Lucas Barnard, Forrestfield Circular Solutions Centre Manager at SKF Australia.
“The bearings are refurbished, or if they can’t be refurbished, they are replaced with new SKF units. That means there’s just one purchase order, and no guesswork.”
SKF’s customers also benefit from full traceability and robust reporting.
“We have a system that tracks bearings throughout their life cycle – each one has a unique serial number,” Barnard highlighted. “Because these bearings can go through a few cycles of refurbishment, we need to know when they have reached the end of their life cycle, so they can be written off.”
In the case of an incident such as a rail derailment, Barnard said bearings are one of the first things an investigator will look at.
“We have strict safety and quality protocols in place, and our traceability means we have our finger on the pulse – so an expired product will never become the weak link that leads to a failure.”
Keeping rail rolling
SKF Australia combines local expertise with global engineering standards. It boasts a highly skilled Australian team, many of whom have several decades of experience
“We’re proud to say that we have very experienced individuals at SKF Australia, not just on the workshop management level but even on the shop floor,” said Arora.
“SKF has invested in their development and in turn they have stayed with the company for a long time.”
Fasolo said there are many benefits to SKF Australia being part of an established global company.
“We work very collaboratively with the product design team, and we develop new products for the market,” he said.
“We work closely with customers to understand their needs, such as long maintenance interval bearings, and create solutions.
“We also feed the information that we glean during the refurbishment process back to SKF’s factories and design centres, to improve product performance.”
He said as SKF continues to expand its footprint and capabilities, its investment in local facilities, digitalisation, and skilled personnel positions the company to better support Australia and New Zealand’s growing rail sectors.
“By bringing global resources together with local experience, SKF is reinforcing its role as a long-term partner to operators – helping to keep fleets moving while balancing performance, cost, and sustainability.”
.jpeg)
.png){kind=small}
