Method and device for positionally accurate processing of a material web

An apparatus for positionally accurate processing of a material web in a web-processing process for the series production of products, in particular for producing membrane assemblies, comprising:

• a shaped-element station,
• wherein the shaped-element station is designed to introduce, for each product, a shaped element into the material web or to apply a shaped element to the material web,
• wherein the shaping-element station is designed to create multiple reference marks per product when the shaped element is being introduced into or when the shaped element is being applied to the material web,
• wherein the shaped-element station, in particular a tool, is designed to create a constant sequence of equidistant reference marks on the material web, and
• wherein an interval between the shaped elements is an integral multiple of an interval between the reference marks and/or to create two sequences of reference marks along two tracks in the material web, and
• wherein, for subsequent positionally accurate processing of the material web relative to the shaped element of a product, the position of at least one of the multiple reference marks of this product and/or at least one of the multiple reference marks of a following and/or at least one of the multiple reference marks of a preceding product can be detected,
• wherein, for subsequent positionally accurate processing of the material web relative to the shaped element of the product, either (i) exactly one reference mark can be detected for an alignment of at least one of the material web and the process station, or (ii) two or more reference marks can be detected to ascertain an angular deviation of the material web in relation to the machine longitudinal axis.