S
KF’s
Yelag
maintenance-free
insert bearings, fitted to a peanut
harvester, provided a customer with
a cost effective solution through increased
farm productivity.
When the customer was having to replace
the bearings on his peanut harvester on
a weekly basis, he approached SKF for a
solution. “Regular bearing replacement
was not only a costly exercise but also
extremely time consuming,” explains SKF
Key Accounts Manager – Agriculture, Charl
Engelbrecht. “Harvesting season is limited
so, in addition to loss of productivity, this
unscheduled downtime was also putting
the customer at huge risk until the
harvesting had been completed”.
SKF offered the customer an agricultural
solution in the form of a Yelag maintenance-
free, insert bearing with locking collar
(Yelag 207). The bearing is designed with
a 5-lip patented seal that was specially
developed for harvesters and easily copes
with agricultural conditions such as dust,
mud, water, straw, etc. The Yelag bearing is
pre-greased which makes it a completely
maintenance-free solution. As there is no
need for re-lubrication, the customer saves
both time and costs. A further advantage
is reduced environmental impact. “The
YELAG is an insert bearing and derives
its name from the YEL insert. The suffix,
AG (agri) was added after the specially
designed 5-lip agri seal was added,”
comments Engelbrecht.
“It was imperative for our customer to
improve on uptime and the high quality,
sealed, maintenance-free Yelag bearing
was the perfect, reliable solution. Increased
uptime, improved productivity and reduced
cost of machine ownership are just some
of the benefits realised by the customer,”
notes Engelbrecht.
The development of this product was
subjected to thorough testing before it
was introduced to the agricultural market.
According to Engelbrecht, the proven
success and the great value add of the
SKF Yelag bearing for the end-user is
resulting in rapid growth in demand for the
product in the agricultural segment. “The
Yelag bearing shows SKFs knowledge and
capabilities for bringing the ideal solution
to agricultural applications and has helped
SKF establish itself as a market leader and
as a value add solutions partner in the
agricultural segment. We also expect to
see more OEMs using the Yelag bearing,
as well as our other agricultural product
offerings which will create new business
for SKF.”
“In all, the customer relationship is of
utmost importance to SKF and we strive
to provide fast, effective solutions. Modern
farmers are focusing more on the quality
of equipment products than on price as
they realise that in good quality reliability,
cost saving and uptime can be found. Our
agricultural product solutions are delivering
on all fronts,” concludes Engelbrecht.
b
SKF YELAG BEARING -
the maintenance free solution
for agriculture
CAPITAL EQUIPMENT NEWS
MAY 2014
8
