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Recent developments in manufacturing raised the importance of digital elements as well as fully automated processes on a strategy, planning and shop floor level. Although the number of publications in this field increases, many scholar and practitioners lack a differentiated use of the related terms of “digitization”,“digitalization” and “automation”. In this paper we offer analyses regarding differences and communalities of these terms as well as their implications on a shop floor level. We found that the term digitalization thereby finds its use mostly in the field of social science describing the social and cultural effects of digital elements. The terms digitization and automation on the other hand are well applicable on the field of manufacturing research. Although these two concepts influence manufacturing processes differently, we conclude that they have to be analysed in integrated manners as one requires the other.