SKF and Great Plains Manufacturing Collaborate to Reduce Tilling Machinery Downtime and Improve Farm Yields  

SKF, a global manufacturer of bearings, seals, lubricants, and condition monitoring systems, worked in partnership with Great Plains Manufacturing, a global manufacturer of agricultural implements for tillage, seeding, and planting, to create a new 7-lip seal package to prolong the life of agricultural tillage equipment and help farmers achieve maximum yield during harvests.

Great Plains Ag, a division of Great Plains Mfg. develops tillage equipment for seedbed 
preparation, but in the Black Earth Region of Russia, key bearings critical to the operation of
tilling equipment were wearing out halfway through the region's farming season. During analysis by SKF and Great Plains engineering teams, significant dirt pack intrusion was found to be a common issue impacting the function of the bearings and leading to machine downtime.

In response, Great Plains and SKF engineers worked side-by-side to update the machinery's design to include a more robust bearing seal that would help better prevent dirt pack-related failures. SKF in the U.S. developed a 7-lip seal by redesigning the seal package to help eliminate dirt pack between the bearing, housing and spool, which outperformed the existing seal design. By minimizing the pressure from the dirt pack against the seals, the equipment can operate more effectively for a longer life cycle.

"Our long partnership with Great Plains led to this successful collaboration to develop an agricultural bearing that can withstand some of the most extreme climate challenges found around the globe. It's a great development for the agricultural community, as it creates a more durable, longer lasting bearing, which extends the availability of the equipment, and increases uptime in the field," said Chris Larson, Strategic Account Manager for SKF.

In addition to retrofitting prior tilling machinery models with the newly redesigned 7-lip TILLXTREME® seal, Great Plains also included the TILLXTREME® seal on its new Great Plains hybrid tillage solution, the Terra-Max, when it launched in September of 2020. Initial in-field testing has been extremely positive, earning high marks from the farmer and outperforming all the customer's goals for uptime and availability.

"Working with our long-time partner SKF Group on this specific challenge, led to a collaborative solution that enabled a better, longer-lasting product for all our customers globally." said Rodney Hake, Engineering Manager for Great Plains. "Our new Terra-Max tillage line-up leaves a uniform, unrestricted soil profile that promotes maximum root development and increases yields for farmers working in the world's most challenging areas."

As part of its global business strategy, SKF is focused on projects that positively impact people, climate footprint and customer sustainability performance. This project helps meet the environmental sustainability goals set by SKF to improve customers' operational and financial performance, and sustainability performance as well. These goals reduce risks and increase safety for operators during maintenance, lead to lower energy use, optimize production output, improve product service life and enable remanufacturing, reduction of waste and a circular economic model.