The influences of series schemes on the heat exchanger system are investigated using matrix analysis method in the present work. The performance of heat exchanger system can be improved by arranging the series schemes without an obvious increase of pressure drop or heat transfer area. The matrix analysis indicates that the series scheme has important effect on the parameter distribution over the heat exchanger system. The heat transfer can be enhanced by improving the distributed coordination between heat transfer coefficient and temperature difference besides increasing their values. The better distributed coordination between heat transfer coefficient and temperature difference corresponds to the better uniformity of heat transfer rate over the heat exchanger system, which is favorable to safety running of system. The matching performance improvement between the entransies of hot and cold fluids could lead to the better distributed uniformity of entransy dissipation over the heat exchanger system, which results in the reduction of the total entransy dissipation finally. The present work might provide a new approach to the optimization and layout of heat exchanger system for the fluids with drastic changes of properties. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.