A combined fuzzy and predictive control is proposed and its performance is investigated through simulation and experiment. The control performance of the combined control is compared with that of the MPC and its applicability to a real process is examined by experimenting the scheme in a pilot-size distillation column. The combined control improves the control performance for setpoint tracking and disturbance regulation and numerical comparison with IAE indicates that the combined control enhances the performance by 9 % over the MPC. In addition, the practical applicability of the proposed control scheme is experimentally proved.