While many are still putting away the party hats from the most recent New Year's celebrations, January 2005 is just around the corner for suppliers to Wal-Mart and the Department of Defense.

That's when leading suppliers to both enterprises must be able to meet case and pallet level radio frequency identification (RFID) compliance mandates. With that in mind, RedPrairie Corp. (www.redprairie.com) opened a fully functional RFID lab which allows users to test their solutions in a real-world environment before going live.

The lab, which is Electronic Product Code (EPC) compliant, is believed to be the first of its kind. EPC is the framework being built for tracking items with RFID across the supply chain.

"Our objective is to help customers test a variety of hardware solutions, tag configurations and products to understand how the technology applies to their business requirements," said John Jazwiec, RedPrairie company leader. "Companies considering RFID implementations can apply the technology in our lab to determine first-hand how RFID will work with their products and packaging."

Companies can test RFID tag placement and readability in the lab, using company-specific data and scenarios. In addition, the lab can estimate the impact of various solutions on their processes and supply chain costs.