The level of productivity in the country has become a concern to the Government and citizens of the nation from all works of life. The need for every corporate organization either private or public across all sectors of the economy to identify, evaluate, describe, and control functional systems and purposeful activities in the production process hinges on productivity. Central to the history of NPC is the need to improve the quantity and quality of goods and services consumed and exported in Nigeria.

Between 1963 and 1985, a series of panels and commissions were set up by various Governments of Nigeria to work out the modalities for instituting productivity consciousness in the nation's system as a prerequisite for improving the national productivity level. The Morgan Wages Commission of 1963, The Okotie-Eboh Tripartite Agreement of 1964, The National Wages Advisory Council, The Adebo Wages and Salaries Commission of 1970, The Whitely Council of 1971 which recommended for the first time the establishment of the National Productivity Centre (NPC), and The Udoji Service Review Commission of 1974 all adding impetus to the clamour for a coordinated productivity movement in the Nation.

 
The emergence of NPC took proper shape in 1978 at the joint conference in Ibadan by the Productivity, Prices and Incomes Board (PPIB), the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research (NISER), and the Federal Ministry of Labour where an organized productivity movement in Nigeria was recommended. It was in 1984 that the Centre was formally inaugurated while the enabling Decree No. 7 (Act CAP 70 of 2004) was promulgated on April 7th, 1987, thus legally establishing the Centre as a Federal Parastatal. The Centre was also accorded a research status in 1993 for its role in research and development. The Centre currently has 16 state offices across the 6 geo-political zones of the nation to expand the frontiers of productivity movement in Nigeria.