A two level hierarchy is employed in the design of networked control systems (NCSs) with bounded random transmission delay. At the lower level a local controller is designed to stabilize the plant. At the higher level a remote controller with the dynamic matrix control (DMC) algorithm is implemented to regulate the desirable set-point for the local controller. The conventional DMC algorithm is not applicable due to the unknown transmission delay in NCSs. To meet the requirements of a networked environment, a new remote DMC controller is proposed in this study. Two methods, maximum delayed output feedback and multi-rate sampling, are used to cope with the delayed feedback sensory data. Under the assumption that the closed-loop local system is described by one FIR model of an FIR model family, the robust stability problem of the remote DMC controller is investigated. Applying jury's dominant coefficient lemma and some stability results of switching discrete-time systems with multiple delays; several stability criteria are obtained in the form of simple inequalities. Finally, some numerical simulations are given to demonstrate the theoretical results. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.