Sounds like a textbook case of a capability trap and a failure to recognize that an improvement programs may actually result in a reduction of productivity in the short term.
From 'Nobody Ever Gets Credit for Fixing Problems That Never Happened'[0] that was discussed a few days ago [1] :
In one firm we studied, the general manager laid out his goals for improving the product development process [...]. At the same time, they launched many new development projects in anticipation of the expected productivity gains. Viewed through the lens of management’s mental model these decisions were entirely rational. However, that mental model [...] led them to the erroneous belief that the delay between improvement effort and results was short and that their engineers were under-utilized, undisciplined, unmotivated, and unwilling to adhere to the specified process.
The company spent millions and invested countless person-hours to create a new product development process. The new process [...] also increased monitoring, including a structured stage-gate review process and mandated use of project management software. While there were some pockets of success, in most cases the effort had little impact. The leaders of the change effort often attributed its failure to the engineers’ lack of discipline:
“A lot of the engineers felt that [the new process] was no value-add and that they should have spent all their time doing engineering and not filling out project worksheets. It’s brushed off as bureaucratic.”—Manager A
Yet, when we asked engineers why the effort failed, we got a different story:
“People had to do their normal work as well as [use the new project management system]. There just weren’t enough hours in the day, and the work wasn’t going to wait.”—Engineer B
“The new process is a good one. Someday I’d like to work on a project that actually uses it.”—Engineer E
While managers felt the engineers had little interest in following the process, engineers became increasingly frustrated with leaders they felt had no understanding of what was really required to develop new products. Faced with the double bind of hitting aggressive performance targets and equally aggressive improvement targets, they were forced to cut corners while still appearing to follow the process. As one engineer remarked,
As management discovers the engineers’ shortcuts and workarounds, their view that the engineers can’t be trusted is confirmed, and they are forced to step up their monitoring.
[0] http://web.mit.edu/nelsonr/www/Repenning=Sterman_CMR_su01_.p...
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8940820