Towards an empirically informed framework of Quality 5.0 benefits in South African manufacturing

Abstract

Quality 5.0 has emerged as a human-centric and sustainability-oriented reorientation of quality management within the broader Industry 5.0 discourse. Defined as a sociotechnical quality paradigm that integrates human well-being, environmental sustainability, organisational resilience and digitally enabled process excellence into a unified value-creation logic, Quality 5.0 remains conceptually underdeveloped and empirically underexplored, particularly in developing-economy contexts. This study aims to explore and operationalise practitioner-perceived Quality 5.0 benefits in South African manufacturing. An exploratory quantitative research design was adopted. Data was collected from 276 manufacturing professionals using a structured questionnaire informed by Quality 4.0, Industry 5.0, sustainable quality management and service-oriented quality literature. Exploratory factor analysis with Varimax rotation was used to identify underlying benefit dimensions complemented by internal consistency assessment. The analysis revealed a stable four-factor structure comprising process, people, planet and profit benefit dimensions. The findings indicate that practitioners interpret Quality 5.0 not as a continuation of technology-driven Quality 4.0, but as an integrative and stakeholder-oriented quality paradigm in which digital capabilities are reoriented to support human-centric outcomes, environmental responsibility and long-term organisational resilience. The study is exploratory in nature and limited by sectoral concentration. The findings should therefore be interpreted as indicative rather than definitive, providing a foundation for further large-scale and cross-contextual validation. The results offer a diagnostic and sense-making framework for policymakers and industry leaders to identify priority value domains, align technology investments with human and sustainability outcomes and guide context-sensitive Quality 5.0 implementation strategies. The findings suggest that Quality 5.0 is increasingly perceived as a human-centric approach to quality management in manufacturing. The identification of people- and planet-related benefit dimensions indicates growing awareness of workforce development, human–machine collaboration and environmental responsibility as integral to quality performance. In a developing-economy context such as South Africa, this perception highlights the potential of Quality 5.0 to support improved job quality and more socially responsible manufacturing practices. These implications should be interpreted as indicative, with future research required to empirically assess social and workforce-level outcomes. This study contributes to the emerging Quality 5.0 literature by offering one of the first empirically informed operationalisations of Quality 5.0 benefits in a developing-country manufacturing context. It provides a structured measurement foundation to support future theory refinement and empirical testing.