Wal-Mart suppliers will need all the help they can get to comply with the mega-retailer's migration to RFID technology. And now they have found an ally in the academic world.

The RFID Center at the University of Arkansas has dedicated several faculty members and nearly 50 students to exploring RFID technology and implementation in a working warehouse environment. Dr. Bill Hardgrave, director of the RFID Research Center, explains that future Wal-Mart suppliers will be better equipped than their top 100 counterparts who were mandated to be RFID-compliant by Jan. 1, 2005. "They have learned from other companies' mistakes," he notes.

The Center is designed to show suppliers the most appropriate hardware—tags, printers and readers—for their specific RFID concerns. "We are trying to make the case for RFID in the supply chain," he says. "We are trying to find efficiencies."