Reinventing the wheel... again

Just got out of a meeting. I'm not sure but once again I think I've just heard that my manager and another engineer reinvented an existing software package that was already made. Just a gut feeling but I think that is what I heard. I'm curious, and a bit exasperated, that they won't ask before they run off and design something. So far 9 times out of 10, we've already got it (at least so far) and they burned a bunch of time needlessly.

I'm supposed to meet with them on it sometime today. So we'll see.