suboptimization
1
9.6
- noun
- /ˌsʌbˌɒptɪmaɪˈzeɪʃən/
- Specialized
- Focusing solely on cost-cutting in individual departments leads to suboptimization, harming overall company performance.
Examples
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Simply doing the best for individual components amounts to suboptimization and results in losses to everybody in the system.
Academic text (2011) -
Suboptimization, that is to say, optimization of a particular process or subsystem, may be less efficient than optimization of the larger-scale system.
Academic text (1994) -
Such a suboptimization, such double dealing, would clearly be detected at the home world in the eventual audit.
Fiction book (2001) -
Although site-based management is not specifically addressed by the standards, the audit is concerned with the problem of suboptimization.
Academic text (1992) -
The team learned that their goal of improving their own metrics created a suboptimization that negatively affected the entire project.
-
Investing in local solutions without considering the wider implications can result in suboptimization and detracted efforts across the organization.
Surface Forms
Morphology
suboptimization = optimization (semi-transparent) = sub + optimization
The formation 'sub-' + 'optimization' indicates optimization of a part, but the specialized negative sense about harming the whole system is a technical nuance not obvious to all learners.
Etymology
The word suboptimization comes from the prefix sub- meaning 'under' or 'less than', seen in words like subway and submarine, and optimize meaning 'make the best', as in optimal. So suboptimization is when improving one part makes the whole system work worse.