Abstract Meeting quality characteristics of products and processes is an important issue for customer satisfaction and business competitiveness. It is necessary to integrate new techniques and tools that improve and complement traditional process variables analysis. This paper proposes a new methodological approach to analyze process quality control variables using Fuzzy Cognitive Maps. Application of the methodology in the production process of carbonated beverages allowed identifying process variables with the greatest influence on finished product quality. The process variables with the greatest impact on carbon dioxide content in the beverage were the beverage temperature in the filler, the carbo-cooler pressure, and the filler pressure.