In this contribution, balance of design and control is investigated through reactive section distribution in an olefin metathesis reactive distillation column. Four designs with different strategies for reactive section distribution are studied and these include one with all stages as reactive ones (design-I), one with the distribution of reactive section according to the principle of internal mass integration (design-II), and ones with the extension of the reactive section of the design-II by five stages to either the stripping section (design-III) or the rectifying and stripping sections simultaneously (design-IV). The design-II appears to be more thermodynamically efficient than the design-I but with considerable degradation in process controllability. The design-III and design-IV retain most of the economical advantages of the design-II with only slight deterioration in controllability as compared with the design-I. This outcome demonstrates the fact that the strategy for reactive section distribution could be an effective decision variable for the balance of design and control in the development of reactive distillation columns. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.