Biographical note

Dr. Vijay Kumar Manupati is currently working as an Assistant Professor in Department of Mechanical Engineering, NIT Warangal. He received his Ph.D. in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. His current research interests include intelligent manufacturing systems, agent/multi-agent/mobile-agent systems for distributed control, simulation, integration of process planning and scheduling in manufacturing, sustainable supply chain, and evolutionary algorithms. He has published more than 75 publications which include Journals like International Journal of Production Research, Computers, and Industrial Engineering, International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Journal of Engineering, Journal of Measurements, International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing, etc. He is acting as an International reviewer for more than 30 peer reviewed Journals. Currently, he is acting as an Editorial review Board member of International Journal of Sustainable Entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility, IGI Global publications. He received Early Carrier Research Grant from Department of Science and Technology (DST) for his research work on Telefacturing Systems. He is a member of Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineering (IISE), Institute of Engineers (IEI) India, a Life Member of the International Association of Engineers, US and also acting as a technical committee member of various international conferences.

Maria L. R. Varela received her Ph.D. degree in Industrial Engineering and Management from the University of Minho, Portugal in 2007. She is an Assistant Professor at Department of Production and Systems of University of Minho. Her main research interests are in Manufacturing Management, Production Planning and Control, Optimization, Artificial Intelligence, Meta-heuristics, Scheduling, Web based Systems, Services, and technologies, mainly for supporting Engineering and Production Management, Collaborative Networks, Decision Making Models, Methods and Systems, and Virtual and Distributed Enterprises for Industry 4.0. She has published more than 200 refereed scientific papers in international conferences and in international scientific books and journals, indexed in the Web of Science and/or in the Scopus databases. Coordinates R&D projects in the area of Production and Systems Engineering, namely concerning the development of web-based platforms and decision support models, methods and systems.

Goran D. Putnik Professor (Full), University of do Minho, Braga, Portugal. His education qualifications include Degree of "Diploma Engineer" (5-year graduation course) in Production Engineering. – Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia. He did his M.Sc in Spetember 1988 in Degree of "Master of Science" (2 year postgraduate course) in Production Engineering – Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Belgrade, and Belgrade, Serbia. Dr.Sc., January 1993 – Degree of "Doctor of Science" (3 year postgraduate course) in Production Engineering – Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia. Equivalency of Dr. Sc., September 1994, by the University of Mino, Braga, Portugal. Aggregation, March 2006 – Degree of "Aggregated", and "Dr.Habil.", University of Minho, Braga, Portugal. He served in various prestigious institutes as professor in various levels having more than 40 years of teaching experience as Assistant Professor (October 1995 to January 1999), Associate Professor (January 1999 to March 2006), Aggregated Professor (Associate Professor w / Aggregation) (March 2006 to May 2009), Professor (Full Professor) (June 2009 to date). He has authored more than 1000 articles including all international, national journals and various book chapters and books and He has published journals includes CIRP Annals: Manufacturing Technology, International Journal of Production Research, Computers and Industrial Engineering, International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Journal of Engineering, Journal of Measurements, International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing, etc. He facilitated with the Prize "Literati Club 2005" Highly Commended Award, presented to the authors Frans M van Eijnatten Goran Putnik for the article "Chaos, Complexity, learning and the learning organization: Towards a chaordic enterprise", The Learning Organization: An International Journal, Vol 11 No. 6, 2004. He is acting as an International reviewer for peer reviewed Journals and currently, he is acting as an Editorial review Board member for various journals.