Quality Insights: Impact of cognitive load on the manufacturing cost of quality

Quality is a multidimensional characteristic of a product. As such, the various factors that impinge on quality must be taken into account when designing new products or managing the production of an existing product. The cost of quality is a tangible and noticeable testament to the upfront investments that an organisation has committed to a product. The cost of achieving and sustaining an acceptable level of product quality must, therefore, be recognised as the cornerstone of manufacturing operations. Of the many factors of importance in the pursuit of better product quality, cognitive loading is the one that is most often ignored or not recognised. In this paper, we present a methodology of assessing the impact of cognitive loading on the manufacturing cost of quality.