At what point does policy and procedures become counter productive? Yes a company needs guidelines and procedures. However, like everything you can go overboard. What is more important is company culture. Doing what is right by the customer so they will want to use you again. CB&I failed at this. It all started when CB&I bought Lummus.
CMS destroys initiative, creativeness and ambition.
My experience is that CB&I will hire anyone and make them a engineer, that is the real reason for CMS. They want to give a procedure to anyone (engineer or not) including India and think they can do a job. Well how did that work for CB&I? You can't fix stupid, hire better people.
CMS is/was necessary because CBI engineers like to pretend they are brilliant geniuses that can’t be bothered with procedures. The truth is that most of them are lemmings with inferiority complexes.
When people become widgets, no one wins. Yes labor force is one of a company's biggest cost but it is also one of a company's biggest assets. That is as long as their people are skilled and trained.
India culture is not the same as American culture.