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Given that the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) calls for the management of water resources at the river basin level, the German water sector, which has historically been dominated by the federal states and has been organized along administrative borders, is now challenged to be reorganized. The article introduces the German water sector, reviews past experiences with river basin management such as North Rhine–Westphalia's water associations, the river basin organizations of the former German Democratic Republic, and international river commissions, and addresses current challenges in connection with the implementation of WFD.

The purpose of this article was to evaluate the causal influence of Lean management practices on knowledge waste within the context of higher education institutions (HEIs). The peculiarities of knowledge impress upon organizations the need to think about reducing knowledge waste as a crucial practice. The Lean philosophy and practices therefore stand out as an appropriate management perspective, particularly given Lean's focus on waste elimination. However, little is known about the influence of Lean practices on reducing knowledge waste.

A quantitative research instrument was distributed to professors and technical and administrative staff across three types of HEI in the State of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The validated and pretested survey was circulated to the target population via an online method to explore eight constructs and 38 items concerning Lean and knowledge and waste.

The results of the survey indicated that all hypotheses were supported. The sum total of 837 responses showed that the Lean relationships (internal organizational paths) were more obvious where leadership support proved to have a positive effect on continuous improvement, training, and customer involvement. Moreover, the significant and negative effects of the Lean practices studied on knowledge waste was also supported, including for example, the interaction between HEIs and its client base.

HEIs are knowledge generators. Therefore, the necessity of avoiding and reducing knowledge waste is even greater. This study also differentiates itself from the “traditional” knowledge loss studies by investigating knowledge while the employees are still part of an organization and not after they have left taking the knowledge away with them.

This study aims to examine the influence of lean management practices on organizational process effectiveness and maturity. The underlying assumption of this paper is that lean management practices may have a positive relation with the initiation and the adoption of a process management approach and be a first step to process management success.

Through a quantitative perspective, a survey was carried out in the Brazilian Federal Police with a valid sample of 991 participants. Data analysis was executed with confirmatory factor analysis and structural equations modeling.

Lean management practices have a positive influence on the Brazilian Federal Police process maturity and on process effectiveness. Process maturity has a positive impact on process effectiveness. The results extend the applicability of lean management practices in the public service scenario. The results will decrease the high failure rates in process transformation projects.

The main limitation of this study is that the researchers could not maintain full control of the research respondents because the data collection was carried out online.

Considering a scenario of increased pressure to upgrade organizational decisional process in the public sector and to offer better public services, the lean management practices can effectively contribute to the development of strategies and actions that will enhance a more effective public service management reality.

This study may contribute as a source of empirical data for future research in other national public organizations and may assist others to redesigning its strategies and actions to achieve excellence in decision-making, by adopting a more agile quality public service with less costs and waste.

New measurement and structural models were defined to analyze lean management practices in the public service as the predictors of organizational process maturity and effectiveness. The discussion on lean management practices, as a first step in process approach applicability, enhances a new process-based management perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to improve the failure analysis and troubleshooting process in engineering to order (ETO) product development, and reduce the amount of parts with failures. This is important because parts with failures are associated with the additional costs resulting from corrections of the product, reduced productivity due to the time waiting for the corrected part, delays in delivery and harm to the image of the organization.

FMEA and A3 are combined in a document for failure analysis and recording of the generated knowledge. The method is applied to an industrial automation company that designs and manufactures ETO products. Initially, the failures identified in mechanical assembly products are mapped, and then FMEA and A3 are combined in a document template, and a checklist for reviewing the detailing is built. Then, the method is applied in the design phase, and also for solving conceptual failures in the mechanical assembly and testing phase and the knowledge generated is recorded.

The results show the feasibility of the proposed method for both failure analysis and knowledge generation. Moreover, the adoption of improvement practices in routine activities, for example, the checklist for reviewing the detailing, can reduce up to 10 percent the amount of parts with failures.

The integration of FMEA and A3 encourages group thinking and monitoring the implemented actions. Since the document contains minor changes in the layout from the design phase to the assembly and testing phase, it contributed to the understanding of the people who participated in performing each phase. It should be ensured that the participation of experienced individuals with a proactive assertiveness who encourage the exchange of knowledge, preventing recurring failures from occurring in the conceptual phase. The approach to ensure quality was well accepted by the personnel in the company, but the implementation requires changing habits and establishing new practices.

The method proposed in this paper was applied to a company that designs and manufactures ETO industrial automation products. Since such products have high variety, the company has different characteristics compared with the companies that were considered in the few publications that attempted to combine the FMEA and A3 methods for failure analysis. The proposed method provides convenience for queries and updates, since it allows the inclusion of different failures in a single A3 report, reducing the number of separate documents. Also, the method includes a checklist for detailing review, which contributed to the reduction of failures.

Teaching students/library patrons twenty-first century literacies (such as information and library literacies) is important within a library setting. As such, finding an appropriate manner to teach these skills in a practical manner at tertiary level is important. As vehicles for constructivist learning, games provide a unique opportunity to teach these twenty-first century literacies in an engaging, practical, format. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the implementation of an alternate reality game (ARG) to teach these literacies through gameplay.

An ARG was designed and developed where the core gameplay tasks taught and exercised twenty-first century literacies. The game, once completed, was then analysed as a case study to determine the effectiveness of the game-based approach to literacy learning.

Throughout the play of the game, players spent increasingly more time in the library, often using it as a common meeting point during play. Players reported that they learnt or exercised the skills that each game task focussed on, additionally noting that the game-based context made the process of learning and exercising these skills more enjoyable.

The findings suggest that the creation of games, whether real world or digital, may be useful in engaging students/patrons with twenty-first century literacies as well as with their local library. The documentation of a successful ARG to teach twenty-first century literacies provides a model for future research to follow when designing engaging library-oriented games.