Recently, the Swedish rolling bearing manufacturer SKF and the Swiss gearbox design software developer KISSsoft have incorporated SKF’s bearing calculation service within KISSsoft's software. With the so-called SKF Bearing Module in KISSsoft, engineers will have direct access to SKF’s bearing technology and bearing performance data. This connection allows for a seamless experience when working on a new gearbox design. Without noticing, an engineer designs a gearbox in KISSsoft ‘as usual’ but is actually connecting to the SKF cloud to retrieve the bearing performance results. These results are based on extremely fast, cloud-based calculation services by SKF in which the operating conditions of the full system are considered when calculating the performance of each individual bearing. As such, a gearbox design is verified more realistically and efficiently as it enables making appropriate bearing choices right from the start.

The user flow is quite simple: First, the user creates a full (gearbox) model in KISSsoft. Then, after registering once for the SKF Bearing Module (using the embedded "SKF Registration Tool"), SKF’s calculation service is called, whenever the bearing performance is calculated to the modified rating life method according to ISO 281. This method can be selected in KISSsoft in the ‘basic data’ window of the bearing and is mandatory if the effects of lubrication and contamination are to be considered.