The fuel cell is powered by 1-12 widely provided by reforming processes. A promising reforming process is methanol steam reforming which has received much attention. This study then attempts to acquire high hydrogen concentration, high methanol conversion efficiency and low CO concentration of methanol steam reforming. Three operating parameters were investigated: reacting temperature (T = 220-280 degrees C), steam-to-carbonate ratio (S/C = 0.9 to 1.1), and the volume flow rate for nitrogen (N-2) carrier gas (Q = 40 to 100 cm(3)/min) as the flow rate of aqueous methanol solution was set as 3.1 cm(3)/min. The integrated approach of combining the Taguchi method with radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) was proposed in this study to demand an optimum parameter design. The results showed that the optimum parameter design was: T = 267 degrees C, S/C = 1.1, and Q = 40 cm(3)/min. The averaged percentage reduction of quality loss (PRQL) of 331% was obtained as optimum condition was implemented, in comparison with the starting condition (the largest reacting temperature, steam-to-carbonate ratio, and N-2 volume flow rate). In addition, principal component analysis (PCA) is also investigated. The results obtained by PCA were compared with the ones by the integrated approach. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.