Conventional multivariate control charts usually focus on a specific process shifts range (small or large), and they cannot get the knowledge of manufacturing process through the learning of in-control data and be effective over the whole range of mean shifts, due to the characteristics of their own structures. In this paper, an effective combined multivariate control chart (named CDD chart, i.e., combined D-MCUSUM and D chart) with an adaptive control limit is proposed to improve the overall detection ability of monitoring techniques in multivariate statistical process control. Besides, this paper also provides a basic methodology for designing the adaptive control limit and recommended values of some key parameters (e.g. window size) for a better application. Based on these, a bivariate simulation experiment is conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed control chart. Simulation results show that the CDD chart offers a better overall performance, compared with regular control charts (e.g. MCUSUM). In addition, a real industrial case also illustrates the effectiveness of the proposed control chart in applications.