In recent years, quite a few industries claim that they are "world-class" and many other industries have embarked on their journey to attain the "world-class" status. But there is a general challenge offered by World-Class Manufacturing Systems (WCMS) to the field of engineering economics, when it becomes necessary to justify its adoption or implementation. The traditional justification approaches do not account for the significant intangible benefits offered by WCMS. Hence, this paper attempts to demonstrate the application of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to overcome the above-mentioned problem. From an extensive analysis of the results, it is evident that implementation of WCMS would result in overall improvement in the performance of an organisation in comparison with the alternatives. Copyright © 2007 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.