João Carlos Gonçalves dos Reis holds the position of Assistant Professor of Services Management, Operations Management, and Logistics at Lusófona University in Lisbon, Portugal. His research focus lies in the domains of Service Science, Industrial Engineering, and Operations Management. Dr. Reis serves as a research fellow at two esteemed institutions. He is affiliated with the RCM2+ Research Centre for Asset Management and Systems Engineering at Lusófona University, where he collaborates with prominent researchers. Additionally, he holds a research fellowship at the Research Unit on Governance, Competitiveness, and Public Policy (GOVCOPP).

Francisco Gaudencio Mendonça Freires was born in Fortaleza (state of Ceará - Brazil) in 1974. He holds a degree in Civil Engineering from the Federal University of Ceará (1996), a Master's degree in production engineering from the Federal University of Santa Catarina (2000), and a Ph.D. in IndustrialEngineering and Management from the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (2007). He has experience in Production Engineering with an emphasis on Business Logistics and Operations Management, working mainly on the following topics: Supply Chain Management, reverse logistics, sustainable SCM, and cost management. He was a professor at the Federal University of the São Francisco Valley (UNIVASF) until 2011. He researched the issue of logistics and supply chain management of biofuels and fruit growing in the north-eastern semi-arid region of Brazil. He has also developed research in the advance of the intermodal logistics of the São Francisco River. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA) Polytechnic School. He also works in the Graduate Program in Industrial Engineering (PEI) at UFBA, currently researching renewable energy alternatives from the supply chain management perspective.