This is a bit of a 'I give up' question but....
The situation
My company is using RFID tags to track the movement of stuff (hire-able stuff like jack-hammers etc) around large industrial sites.
We are managing this by using RFID tags and a smattering of readers.
We are not the manufacturers or resellers of this equipment; nor are we the 'owners' of them. As a result,we have no interest in barcoding these items. Additionally, these items will never leave these sites, so will never be 'back in the world'.
The questions
Other info
I have read stuff from GS1 about registering a company prefix etc. The issue for us is that we would happily buy a prefix, but they seem to be very expensive; especially because we are not tracking these tags in the big-wide-world, just a controlled site. I have found the lack of simple information about what I am meant to do for EPC IDs and whether I am meant to register a prefix quite frustrating (hence my 'give up' question).
Any advice would be appreciated!
There is a list of 'restricted distribution' prefixes that can be used - see Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_GS1_country_codes). While officially those should not be used in EPC encoded tags; nobody is going to sue or fine you for actually doing so.
Probably you can use those best in combination with GRAI (Global Returnable Asset Identifier) or GIAI (Global Individual Asset Identifier) EPC encoding. See http://www.kentraub.net/tools/tagxlate/EPCEncoderDecoder.html for an easy online encoder/decoder.
You could use your own way of encoding, ignoring the GS1 EPC standards. However, this might limit future compatibility with 3rd party software solutions, and limit usability for other partners on the industrial sites.