Professor Emeritus Pat McKeown
Professor Emeritus Pat McKeown has been described as one of the pioneers of modern high precision engineering, helping to advance it into the realm of nano-engineering.
After initial student apprentice training [1951-54] in the aircraft industry, he attended the College of Aeronautics at Cranfield for two intensive post graduate years and then joined the world leading Swiss high precision metrology and machine tool company GSIP where he specialised in the comprehensive geometric and thermal error analyses of high precision machines. This led, in due course, to his paper CIRP Vol 22/1,1973 (Tokyo) on calculating volumetric accuracy, 3D error-mapping and eventually to software error compensation, in universal use today.
After 13 years in industry he returned to Cranfield in 1968 to help his predecessor Prof. John Loxham CBE FCIRP establish the Cranfield Unit for Precision Engineering, (CUPE) a MinTech Industrial Unit which went on to design, build and supply a wide range of high and ultra precision machine tools including the world's first CNC camshaft grinding machines, later further developed for crankshaft pin orbital grinding. These were based on, or derived from, the original CUPE master-slave NC system. Machine sales by Fives Landis Ltd. now exceed £2.5 bn with similar sales by its USA sister company. The range of innovative UP machines designed, built, and supplied included single point diamond turning machines capable of nanometre precision and large telescope mirror grinding machines.
He has led professional development short courses in the UK, USA, China, Singapore, Taiwan and Australia and has been a visiting professor at U of C , Berkeley, U of Wisconsin Madison and Nanjing University of Aeronautics, China. In 1996 he received HonDSc from both the University of Connecticut and his own Cranfield University.
He was awarded the Faraday Medal (IET,1999) and the James Clayton Prize (IMechE,2007) He was the initiator of, and in 1998, the founding president, of the highly successful European Society for Precision Engineering and Nanotechnology, euspen, to which several senior CIRP colleagues and friends have been outstanding contributors and leaders.
He has received Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Japan Society for Precision Engineering, the American Society for Precision Engineering and euspen and was awarded the Georg-Schlesinger-Preis from the state of Berlin in 2006 for his work in production engineering in general and high precision engineering in particular.
Pat McKeown was elected a full member of CIRP in 1974 (Tokyo) and was President in 1989-90; he has benefitted greatly from CIRP Fellowship in his professional career and feels greatly honoured by this prestigious General Nicolau Award.
He is married to Mary, a historian; they have three sons, nine grandchildren and in 2019, a great granddaughter. Mary has attended and supported many CIRP General Assemblies.