Your requirements are definitely dumb. It does not matter who gave them to you. It's particularly dangerous if a smart person gave them to because you may not question them enough.
Whatever requirement or constraint you have must come with a name (not a department). That person who is putting forward the requirement/constraint must take responsibility for that requirement.
Very important. If you are not occasionally adding things back in, you are not deleting enough. The bias tends to be really strongly towards adding a process or step in case we need it. Ruthlessly remove parts/processes and don't hedge your bets.
The rule of thumb, if you're not adding parts/processes back in 10% of the time you are clearly not deleting enough.
Only after completing steps 1 and 2 can you begin to optimize. Possible the most common error of a smart engineer is to optimize a thing that should not exist.
You're moving too slowly, go faster. But make sure to work on the first 3 steps first.
Only now should you automate. Elon has made the mistake to start with automation.