th centrury, the concept of reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMSs) rocked the world of manufacturing and promised a global revolution in the 21 st century manufacturing landscape. Since then, a lot of research on RMSs was conducted and numerous research papers were archived. In addition, a number of international conferences, workshops and seminars were organized to discuss, share and exchange highly focused, technical, and cutting edge theoretical research results and perspectives on RMSs. While a lot of research works are commendable, the realization of a true reconfigurable manufacturing system (RMS) is still elusive [1]. Consequently, a gap between archived theory - academia and practical realization - industry exists to date. This gap has lead to ‘doubts’ and ‘disquiet’ with respect to limitations, practicality and applicability of reconfigurable manufacturing concepts and techniques. In order to create a platform for bridging this gap, this paper suggests some answers to the question; “what can industrial engineering and management do to prevent reconfigurable manufacturing concepts from being yet another archived buzz word?”Perspectives and discussions which follow attempt to provoke industry, students, academia and researchers into high quality and highly valuable discussions aimed at redeeming and advancing RMSs concepts and techniques towards the realization of the full benefits of true reconfigurable manufacturing systems. Such discussions can be facilitated through this Industrial Engineering and Management journal by the Omics group. The term reconfigurable manufacturing systems can be attributed to Dr. Koren who, with other researchers at the Engineering Research Center for Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (ERC/RMS) at the University of Michigan, College of Engineering, invented or initiated the concept of an RMS as early as 1995. Since then, a repository of reconfiguration science has been accumulated. The repercussions of this invention went as far as forcing changes in the engineering curricula at the University of Michigan to integrate reconfigurable manufacturing concepts and techniques. However, to date only isolated “islands” of reconfiguration based technologies have been implemented in the following areas; controls, inspection, sensing, machines and machine tools. With the seemingly ‘disquiet’ and relatively less ‘enthusiasm’ on the part of both industry and academia, there is an imminent danger of collapse and relapse of the novel ideas of reconfigurable manufacturing. It is now the time to use industrial engineering and management tools and techniques to combine the various “islands” of reconfigurable manufacturing technologies scattered in various databases in a bid to develop and advanced current research results towards the realization of true reconfigurable manufacturing systems.