'Total quality management' covers many of the same thoughts. Here's a good write up on exactly this topic, the self-reinforcing nature of inefficient work, I ra

'Total quality management' covers many of the same thoughts. Here's a good write up on exactly this topic, the self-reinforcing nature of inefficient work, I ran into a few days ago: "Nobody Ever Gets Credit for Fixing Problems That Never Happened: Creating and Sustaining Process Improvement" https://gwern.net/doc/economics/2001-repenning.pdf https://gwern.net/doc/economics/2001-repenning.pdf , Repenning & Sterman 2001.