This paper addresses control system design of the vinyl acetate monomer production plant that has been introduced as a plantwide control benchmark problem by Luyben et al. Nonlinear analysis of a simplified model, which includes detailed reactor behavior and ideal separation with gas and liquid recycle, is performed to identify the optimal operating condition and to develop intuition for control system design. Control system is hierarchically constructed to realize the optimal operating condition, which is verified through simulation on a rigorous nonlinear model. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.