A simulation and experimental study of three controller tuning methods is conducted. They are the popular closed-loop method of Ziegler-Nichols [1], (ZN), the integral of time multiplied by the absolute error (ITAE) technique of ROVIRA et al. [2] and the model-based method of ABBAS [3], (AA). It has been found that if a good first order plus time delay (FOPTD) model of the plant is developed then the ITAE and AA methods will generally lead to better controller settings than the ZN approach.