PRECEPT: Process Re-Engineering Europe: Choice, People and Technology is a seven-nation European Union TSER-funded project that aims to map diversities and similarities in Business Process Re-Engineering through Europe with the aim of explicating the growth and development of best practice. The research examines the origins of BPR Tools and techniques and explores the ways they have evolved as they have been transferred to European economies and applied in companies. It explores the ways in which ideas about best practice are communicated, focussing on various intermediaries such as business consultants, professional associations and the education sector.

The study aims to map the common features of BPR across the seven nations taking part, together with the national differences in both philosophy and practice. At another level, the project will examine the ways in which BPR has been implemented within national and industrial contexts. The study aims to map the common features of BPR across the seven nations taking part, together with the national differences in both philosophy and practice. At another level, the project will examine the ways in which BPR has been implemented within national and industrial contexts.

A major component of the research involves case studies of the implementation of BPR and other redesign exercises within companies. The study has the practical aim of helping managers and their company members to gain further understanding of the most recent trends and developments in process re-engineering in a historical and commercial context with practical benefits for the choices made in future re-engineering exercises.

Through its substantive focus on the choices of methods and concepts for business process redesign, the project addresses new models of work organisation, the use of IT and knowledge management techniques and technologies, and their implications for organisational performance and competitiveness. PRECEPT will investigate and highlight the means by which ideas about good practice for the business use of technologies and techniques are generated and disseminated both within and across companies and sectors. The aim of PRECEPT is to develop an understanding of the key factors that have led to successful re-engineering projects and to examine how these might be developed to create a secure, empirically-based foundation for future projects in various sectors.

PRECEPT is an interdisciplinary project involving Dr Ashley Lloyd and Dr Ian Graham from the University of Edinburgh Management School and Dr Robin Williams and Dr Roger S. Slack from the Research Centre for Social Sciences. Members of the research team have substantial experience in the fields of process re-engineering, knowledge management, the use of new production technologies, and the role of information technologies in the workplace.

The project research team is conducting a series of interviews with key personnel focusing on their experience of process reengineering projects and reflections on these in order to understand process reengineering in context. Interviews will identify the work of key personnel in process reengineering projects together with the 'natural history' of the project and interactions with others in and outwith the company.