Steven Smith, co-founder and president, GCommerce: GCommerce has created an automated electronic highway for procurement using the cloud.

FORBES: Cloud Computing's Hidden 'Green' Benefits

American garment makers increasingly offer electronic ordering, automated distribution centres and inventory-management systems tied into those of their customers.

ECONOMIST: American textiles

Crump studied mechanical engineering at Washington State University before starting his own company, an oddball maker of automated packaging machinery and large electronic scales.

FORBES: Almost Out of the Woods

With the arrival of the new automated National Stock Exchange (NSE) in 1994, he could see that electronic trading would be the future.

FORBES: Exchange For Good

Information describing employment, income and assets are tendered during a telephone interview, an electronic file is created, a credit report is secured and an algorithm delivers an automated underwriting decision.

FORBES: The Mortgage Pre-Approval Con