Tool Set for Improving Transactional Processes

In transactional processes I have found the "technical or economic data"  may point you in the right direction using a high altitude metric like a simple Pareto, or trend data.  However, getting to root causes often is more about value assessments rather than statistical analysis. For example, a Pareto may suggest that most of the arguments are occuring in a certain place, however it will take human inputs, say from human interventions using FMEA or Situational Leadership, to reveal where the greater hassels, disruption or pain is occurring, and why.

Transactional processes are driven heavily by valuations made by the transactional agents, not just on utility we as analysts might externally place on data. Examining value issues such as: Which duties take priority? What transactional ends are sought and what intents and means are proper? Or, at whose benefit and at whose expense ought this process be managed? ..these issues all can be more germane to the field of ethics than to statistics, yet they are immensly instrumental to the success of many transactional processes. In a transactional process, knowing its variation is meanless (can be good or bad) unless well examined value judgements tell us what the variation means.

Regarding  the use of regression, I have found behavioral studies can benefit from using curv-fitting to find non-linear relationships between factors as a means of understanding dynamic behavior, which can  contribute to the "value-finding" human interventions and root cause analysis.