[undreren]

Bureaucracy is foremost a tool for control, and the cost is time, friction and/or autonomy.

Sometimes this control is great, as it can streamline processes, which can make employee training and automation cheaper.

The problem is that the extra work created by bureaucracy is rarely executed by those that demand it, and is often only desired due to a lack of trust in those working on the floor.

A good bureaucracy requires very little active work (by humans) and has tangible benefits. It has to be of greater measureable value than the loss of productivity it incurs on the employees tasked with running it.

[dcminter]

I think you're right. Bureaucracy has become a term of abuse so we tend not to realise that the good stuff can also be bureaucratic (code reviews being an example that springs to mind).