We introduce the notion of syzygy for a set of reduction operators and relate
it to the notion of syzygy for presentations of algebras. We give a method for
constructing a linear basis of the space of syzygies for a set of reduction
operators. We interpret these syzygies in terms of the confluence property from
rewriting theory. This enables us to optimise the completion procedure for
reduction operators based on a criterion for detecting useless reductions. We
illustrate this criterion with an example of construction of commutative
Gr{\"o}bner basis
