Past opportunity

Remanufacturing Return Flow Platform with SKF

Traceability software
Communication platform
Reverse logistics

Industry

Industrials

Revenue

2022

€8.7B

Employees

2021

47,000+

Countries

2022

130+

About

SKF is a world leader in rolling bearings and related technologies. As a prominent industrial player, their work towards more sustainable operations and limiting the negative environmental impact is constant and ambitious. SKF wants to encourage more customers to remanufacture their used bearings instead of replacing them, extending their lifespan of the bearings, promoting eco-friendliness, and reducing waste. To make this happen, SKF is looking for platform solutions to provide an easy-to-use and smooth end-to-end tool that can significantly boost the customer experience and encourage customers to adopt circularity.

Opportunity overview

The current process of sending the used SKF bearings for remanufacturing, delivering remanufactured bearings back to customers and payment processing, can be cumbersome, time-consuming, and needs more transparency. The perceived complexity and inconvenience of the process creates friction in terms of customer demand for remanufacturing as a service. Additionally, the communication channels used between SKF and the customer regarding practical matters in the remanufacturing process are deemed to add to the challenge.

We aim to enable a smoother return flow for SKF bearings and create a seamless end-to-end customer experience. To achieve this, we wish to explore a traceability service or software platform as a potential solution. This platform would facilitate two-way communications between SKF and customers, providing near real-time updates on the bearing's journey, including pick-up schedules and delivery. Customers could also integrate with the API for freight companies to simplify pick-up. The ideal partner would be a next-generation technology partner to develop a platform offering SKF customers relevant information, eliminating customers needing to search for it themselves.

Summary of requested solution

The solution we are looking for should enhance customer experience making remanufacturing the first choice of action. It should be as easy to send, keep track of and receive a remanufactured bearing as buying a new one.

Moreover, customers should be able to specify and be aware of who handles their products and how and when to return them. By acting upon the usage data, SKF can improve offerings and efficiency in operations and enhance the customer experience. The overall goal is to make remanufacturing easy for customers by solving reverse logistics and communications challenges related to the service.

Your opportunity with SKF

SKF is the world's largest bearing manufacturer, with 17,000 distributors in 130 countries. As an industry leader, their offering has outstanding potential for scaling your company’s solution globally. SKF constantly looks for innovative solution providers who can help make their offerings even more effective and decrease their carbon footprint. This opportunity is an excellent chance to share industry knowledge and provide you with valuable learnings, opening up further opportunities within the industry.

Focus Areas

Examples of solutions we’re interested in

Reverse logistics platforms

Software solutions that are user-friendly and streamline sending in used bearings for remanufacturing and returning them to the customers can be the solution. We also aim to make it easy and automatic for technicians to accurately assess the condition of the bearings and help them make decisions that support sustainability and reliability. The development of a seamless end-to-end experience will attract more demand for remanufacturing.

Traceability services

Incorporating specialized traceability services, such as using RFID or QR code technology that focuses on tracing the journey of the bearings between the customer’s location and SKF’s facilities would increase the transparency and predictability of the process and subsequently improve the customer experience.

Communications platform

Handling the end-to-end communications process involved in bearing remanufacture with multiple stakeholders including end-users, distributors and different teams at SKF.

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