The effect of cognitive demands and perceived quality of work life on human performance in manufacturing environments

The main objective of this study was to test the research question that human performance in manufacturing environments depends on the cognitive demands of the operator and the perceived quality of work life attributes. The second research question was that this relationship is related to the operator's specific task and time exposure. Two manufacturing companies, with a combined population of seventy-four (74) multi-skilled, cross-trained workers who fabricated and assembled mechanical and electrical equipment, participated in an eight month, four-wave pseudopanel study. Structural equation modeling and invariance analysis techniques were conducted on the data collected during cognitive task analysis and the administration of questionnaires. Human performance was indicated to be a causal result of the combined, and uncorrelated, effect of cognitive demands and quality of work attributes experienced by workers. This causal relationship was found to be dependent on the context of, but not necessarily the time exposed to, the particular task the operator was involved with.Relevance to industryAn implication of this study is that an human operator's perceived quality of work life attributes may be effectively paired with the cognitive demand associated with a particular manufacturing task in order to optimize the operator's human performance.