Lai Xu

Academic Profile

Dr. Lai Xu is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Science and Technology at Bournemouth University, UK. She holds a PhD in Computerized Information Systems from Tilburg University (2004), an MSc in Telecommunication and Information Systems from Xidian University (1999), and a BSc in Computer Science from Wuhan University of Technology (1992).

Research Expertise

Her research focuses on sustainable transformation, smart manufacturing, and digital enterprise solutions. Key domains include:

• Virtual factories and Industry 4.0 technologies
• Business Process as a Service (BPaaS)
• Enterprise interoperability and collaborative systems
• Digital twins for supply chain resilience
• Predictive maintenance in flexible manufacturing

Publication Trends

Recent work emphasizes Industry 4.0 applications, particularly digital twins for manufacturing optimization (2022-2025). Earlier research laid foundations in service-oriented architectures, e-contracting, and virtual enterprise modeling (2004-2018). A consistent focus on process innovation and cross-organizational collaboration spans her 130+ publications.

Grants & Projects

Principal Investigator for:

• EU Horizon SUSHEAS (Sustainable High Entropy Alloys, 2025)
• EU H2020 FIRST (Virtual Factories, €1.2M, 2017-2022)
• Developing Sustainable Intelligent Supply Chain (2022)

Professional Engagements

Represents the UK in IFIP WG 5.5 on Virtual Enterprises. Editorial board member for the International Journal of Simulation and Process Modelling. Regular reviewer for IEEE Transactions on Services Computing and other top journals.