The manufacturing sector is facing an increase in product recall which damages the brand images and customer goodwill. The main purpose of this research was to explore the direct, indirect and total effects of quality management factors toward management of the cost of poor quality in the South African manufacturing sector. The study proposed the theoretical model based on the literature reviewed and tested the proposition using structural equation modelling in AMOS 26. The empirical data were collected from 119 managers from the South African manufacturing industry and the snowball sampling provided the ability to identify the target group. The findings identified process management and business result focus to have a statistically significant total effect on cost of poor quality. The contribution of this paper lies on the observed effects of quality management factors which could be used by managers to prioritise their efforts toward management of the cost of poor quality.