The Gulf Region Texas Manufacturing Assistance Center, an affiliate of the University of Houston’s College of Engineering, is similar to UA’s Productivity Center, but operates on a smaller scale with fewer services. Both facilities are a part of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership and are designed to expand and improve manufacturing in their respective states.

The impetus to benchmark the APC came from UH’s College of Engineering dean, Raymond W. Flumerfelt, who resigned as dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Alabama in July 1998.

“Dr. Flumerfelt was very impressed with the productivity center, and he gave me the mission of going there and visiting the facilities,” Parsaei said. The APC “has always been the one he has cited as the best center he has ever seen. I would like to visit and learn about the way that you funded the center, the different areas that you are focusing on, and the type of services you provide. I was also very impressed with the center’s use of graduate students. We want to learn how we can integrate all these activities and energies in one center.”

The Alabama Productivity Center is a non-profit organization established in 1986 by The University of Alabama and Alabama Power Co. The center's mission is to focus University research and educational resources on the enhancement of productivity technology and to stimulate economic development within Alabama.

The UA Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration, founded in 1919, has been recognized repeatedly in the 1990s for offering a high-quality, cost-effective education. The College is ranked 49th in the nation by U.S. News and World Report. The Culverhouse School of Accountancy was one of the first 13 schools accredited at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Faculty members in the department of economics, finance and legal studies are among the national leaders in finance research publishing.

The department of management and marketing is recognized nationally and the department of information systems, statistics and management science produces graduates who are in high demand by the nation's leading businesses. The Bruno Business Library is considered one of the best in the nation.