The unpredictability of market requirements is currently challenging manufacturing firms in addressing the need to be more and more responsive. To meet this need and to gain competitive advantage firms require reconfigurability. Literature provides much information on characteristics of reconfigurability, but generally restricting the focus on highly automated systems. In order to investigate on reconfigurability characteristics in a broader context, within this paper, three cases of plant reconfiguration were analysed and implemented actions were interpreted via the core characteristics of reconfigurability. Results allow fostering an extension of definitions of such core characteristics with respect to what stated by literature.