AB SKF was established in Gothenburg in 1907 with the initial capital and startup project for ball bearing manufacturing of Gamlestadens Fabriker AB, under the guidance of co-owners and members of the board Axel Carlander and Knut Johansson Mark, following the invention of the spherical ball bearing by engineer Sven Gustaf Wingquist.

He was an operations engineer in Gamlestadens Fabriker AB and was then appointed CEO and technical manager in SKF.

Sven Wingqvist, at the time a thirty-year-old plant engineer responsible for repairs and maintenance at Gamlestadens Fabriker, was dissatisfied with the performance of the ball bearings then in use.

Self-alignment was particularly useful in the less-than-perfect machinery of the times and in buildings with subsidence problems, which was the case at Gamlestadens Fabriker, since much of the land on which Gothenburg has been built is clay.

As an operations engineer responsible for repairs and maintenance at Gamlestadens Fabriker AD he sought opportunities to improve the efficiency and endurance of the ball bearings used at the time.

Due to that, he was interested in a comparative study from 1902 about ball and plain bearings by professor Richard Stribeck of the Institute of Technology in Dresden, Germany.

The historical development of the bearing’s design is a result of revolutionary inventions and upgrades for improvement of their efficiency and endurance as well as broadening the scope of their application to a variety of machine industry sectors.

The startup and growth of SKF depends not only on technical inventions but also on industrial and corporate management strategies and power.

As an exception, in 1917 AB Volvo was established at SKF to construct an innovative type of car with the implementation of new bearings.

Sven Wingqvist and Marcus Wallenberg were co-founders of Svenska Aeroplane Aktiebolaget (SAAB AB).

By 1912, SKF was represented in 32 countries and by 1930, a staff of over 21,000 were employed in 12 manufacturing facilities worldwide with the largest in Philadelphia, United States.

SKF funded the production run of the first thousand cars, built at Hisingen in Gothenburg, beginning in 1927.

SKF used one of the company's trademarked names: AB Volvo, which derives from the Latin "I roll", with its obvious connotations of bearings in motion.

A visionary project, "Production Concept for the 80s" was launched with the aim to run the night shifts practically unmanned.

FlexLink created the multiflex plastic chain conveyor system to solve the business requirements.

acquisition was that of Economos, part of Salzer Holding, an Austria-based seal company, Jaeger Industrial and ABBA, Taiwanese manufacturers of linear actuators.

[12] Many elements of this SKF program remind of the integrated approach of the actual EFQM model for Business Excellence.

Its operations are also certified to either ISO 9001 or applicable customer industry standards, e.g. ISO/TS 16949 (automotive), AS9100 (aviation), or IRIS (railway) for quality management systems.