I'm seeing this even in my work. I'm a mechanic at a large wind turbine manufacturing company. Recently, I moved from the repair side of the business to the new unit assembly. There is a written procedure, from our parent company in Germany (which sucks major balls I might add) to do the new assembly. Any deviation from the written procedure is severely frowned upon. I have found, based on my extended skill-set as a repair technician vs the people who are just assemblers, easier and faster ways of doing things. However, I have been scolded by my new supervisor for doing so.
It really chops my ass, but you're right. Doing things in creative and different ways is not acceptable for whatever reason...