Graham T. Smith, MPhil (Brunel), PhD (Birmingham), C Eng, FIMechE, FIEE
(Formerly: Professor of Industrial Engineering, Southampton Solent University, UK)
Graham T. Smith started his engineering career in the
early 1960’s at a West Midlands company that manu-
factured precision automotive parts by drop forging
and pressing. He was trained in a large Die-shop in
a heavy toolmaking environment, becoming a fully-
skilled and qualied crasman. In the late 1960’s, he
moved to the London area and joined initially, an
aerospace company working as a prototype toolmaker,
then later precision Jig-boring at an optical toolmak-
ing company, while gaining a Full Technological Cer-
ticate in Production Engineering. In the mid-1970’s,
the author worked for an industrial consultancy unit
the: Materials Advisory Service, based at e Univer-
sity of Southampton, while studying for a post-gradu-
ate Certicate of Advanced Study in Metallurgical
Quality Control, which was then followed by a Master
of Philosophy degree in Machinability – both at Bru-
nel University. Later, while working as a lecturer in the
Mechanical Engineering Department at e University
of Birmingham, he completed a Doctor of Philosophy
degree in Machined Surface Integrity.
While working at the Southampton Solent Univer-
sity – in the 1990’s, the author was instrumental in set-
ting up a fully-industrialised Flexible Manufacturing
System, featuring an integrated range of turning and
machining centres, robotic handling and a CMM for
part quality assessment. e tooling was of the mod-
ular type and the machines equipped with adaptive
control, with each machine tool being equipped with
touch-trigger probing. At the time of its installation,
About the Author
this FMS plant was probably one of the most sophisti-
cated and advanced in any educational establishment
in the UK. For many years, the author also acted as a
consultant for an international cutting uid producer
and distributor – industrial ‘trouble-shooting’, as well
as undertaking many complex machinability short-
and long-term duration projects, for a range of indus-
trial and aerospace companies.
In the 1990’s the author was one of the three found-
ing members of the international conference on: La-
ser Metrology and Machine Performance, which has
now ‘visited’ numerous university venues within the
UK. Later, the author was both the originator and then
Chairman of the international conference on Industrial
Tooling, which until recently resided at Southampton,
but now is hosted by Mississippi State University. e
notable features of this conference was a large tooling-
based exhibition – run by the conference secretary: Dr
Guy Littlefair, plus a range of industrial-based tool-
ing and machine tool speakers, with some exceptional
pioneering researchers in the elds of: metal cutting;
surface integrity and metrology. Typical of these ‘Key-
note speakers’ which notably included such alumini
as Professors: Milton C. Shaw; Ranga Komanduri; E.
Brinksmeier; David J. Whitehouse; John T. Berry; plus
Dr M. Eugene Merchant – to name but a few.
Professor Smith has lectured widely within the UK
and across both Europe and North America, while he
continues to undertake industrial consultancy and Ex-
pert Witness litigation activities.