A manufacturing apparatus for manufacturing a composite sheet associated with an absorbent article, including: a producing device that produces a substrate sheet by fixing a stretchable sheet to at least low-extensible sheet, the stretchable sheet continuing along a transporting direction, the stretchable sheet being in an extended state in which the stretchable sheet is extended in the transporting direction, the producing is performed while the producing device is transporting the stretchable sheet; a reference-section forming apparatus that forms a physical reference section on the substrate sheet, the substrate sheet being in a first extended state and being transported; a contraction apparatus in which the substrate sheet that has the reference section formed on it contracts until the substrate sheet becomes in a second extended state whose extension ratio is smaller than an extension ratio of the first extended state; and a processing apparatus that performs the certain process to the substrate sheet, the substrate sheet having contracted and being in the second extended state. The contraction apparatus includes: a transport path in which the substrate sheet is transported; a sensor that detects the reference section after the contraction in the contraction apparatus and that outputs a detection signal; and an alteration device that alters a transportation state of the substrate sheet in the transport path so that a position in the substrate sheet for the certain process is located close to a target position for the certain process, the alteration being performed according to the detection signal of the sensor.