If you can model something, then you understand it, know what is going on inside it and, within constraints, can control it, stabilise it or protect it from the effects of disturbances
I have modelled a wide variety of processes using the methods described including :Metallurgical, Thermal, Shaping, Chemical, Food and Bio processes
Some models were used to decide on how to improve process operation, some to drive estimators of important but unmeasurable internal process variables, some were used for prediction, some were built into on-line control systems.
Many powerful tools and packages are now available to help the would-be modeller. However, the underlying ideas of how to set about modelling are basic and unchanging.
This book, originally published in 1983, describes those underlying techniques in as simple a way as possible; its content was honed by interactive teaching to many years of first year graduate students