Through the 1960s, American railroads, trucking firms, and later retailers developed early computer-to-computer systems for exchanging standardized shipping manifests, invoices, and purchase orders, a practice that came to be known as Electronic Data Interchange, or EDI. Industry groups such as the Transportation Data Coordinating Committee worked through the late 1960s and 1970s to agree on common electronic formats so that different companies' computer systems could exchange trade documents without manual re-entry. EDI adoption spread to grocery and general retail supply chains during the 1970s and 1980s, cutting paperwork and processing delays in ordering and shipping, and these efforts eventually fed into broader international EDI standards used in global trade documentation.
Relevance to Trade History
Computer-to-computer exchange of trade documents reduced paperwork, errors, and delay in supply chains, foreshadowing later digital trade documentation standards.
Read the full story in our article The Telegraph and Faster Commercial Communication.
Source: Smithsonian National Museum of American History. See our Sources & Methodology page for how we select and verify references.