Reliable stabilization and regulation of two-channel decentralized multi-input multi-output (MIMO) control systems is considered. The system has integral-action due to using proportional + integral + derivative (PID) controllers. Closed-loop stability and asymptotic tracking of step-input references are achieved at each output channel when all controllers are operational. Stability is maintained when one of the controllers fails completely and is set to zero. Controller synthesis procedures are proposed for stable MIMO plants and for several unstable MIMO plant classes that admit PID controllers. These synthesis procedures are applied to various examples of process systems to illustrate the design methodology. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.