It is proposed to employ melting rate, heat input, and detaching droplet diameter as controlled variables to control heat and mass transfer to work piece in a gas metal arc welding process. A two-layer architecture with cascade configuration of PI and MPC controllers is implemented to incorporate existing constraints on the process variables, improve transient behavior of the closed-loop responses and reduce interaction level. Computer simulation results are presented to indicate usefulness of the proposed controlled variables selection and applying two-layer control architecture to control heat and mass transfer to work piece. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.