A substrate subjected to an exposure process by an exposure unit is transported into a cleaning processing unit in a substrate processing apparatus. An adjustment is made to the presence time (more specifically, the waiting time or the cleaning time) of the exposed substrate in the cleaning processing unit to adjust the instant of the end of a cleaning process so as to provide a constant time interval between the instant of the completion of the exposure process and the instant of the end of the cleaning process. Such adjustments provide a constant time interval between the instant of the completion of the exposure process and the instant of the start of a post-exposure bake process, and also provide a constant time interval between the, instant of the completion of the cleaning process and the instant of the start of the post-exposure bake process. This achieves further improvements in the line width uniformity of a pattern formed when a chemically amplified resist is used. |