Tapeless to touchless: XSYS is automating flexo

For Bert Eeckhout, product manager for XSYS’s equipment and software division, it all starts with understanding the printer’s daily grind. ‘The key is to eliminate friction – not just between cylinders and substrates but across the entire workflow,’ he says. And nowhere is this ethos more vividly embodied than in XSYS’s Woodpecker surface screening technology.

Woodpecker, with its engineered microstructures – particularly the high-resolution Nano and the white-ink-optimised Nevis – has redefined ink transfer. ‘We’ve reached a point where the plate is actively controlling the ink,’ Bert explains. ‘The behaviour is predictable from the first impression. You don’t chase colour densities anymore – they arrive pre-tamed.’ In effect, that translates into less trial and error, shorter set-up times and remarkable on-press consistency. Dot bridging? Gone. Trail edge voids? Neutralised.

But press performance is just one chapter of the story. The real revolution is happening upstream, deep in the prepress arena, where XSYS’s ThermoFlexX Catena+ system quietly hums through plate making without the need for human touch. ‘With Catena+, we’ve taken a fragmented, error-prone process and distilled it into a single button press,’ Bert comments. 

The system automates everything from imaging to washout, drying and final light finishing – no plate shuttling, no tape and no margin for mishandling.

The new EcoFillX software for ThermoFlexX imagers targets non-image areas on flexo plates to reduce polymer washout, cutting solvent use by up to 30%. This delivers both environmental benefits and significant cost savings.

Waste reduction, once an abstract industry buzzword, has become a quantifiable KPI in XSYS’s ecosystem. The Catena-E’s high-efficiency LED UV exposure units eliminate mercury-based lamps and their toxic afterlife. Vacuum slider systems replace tape with precision suction – every inch of plate material becomes usable. ‘We’ve even built in intelligent dryer activation,’ Bert adds. ‘The system powers up only what it needs, when it needs it. It’s smart energy, not brute force.’

The elegance of these engineering feats is matched by their real-world impact, as demonstrated in a recent collaboration between XSYS, Hybrid Software and the Australian repro house Kirk Group for flexible packaging giant RollsPack.

Faced with the challenge of reducing environmental impact while maintaining gravure-like quality, Kirk Group adopted a fully integrated XSYS-based workflow. Nyloflex® NEF D plates combined with Woodpecker Nano screening, ThermoFlexX 80 imaging and the Catena+ line transformed its production floor. According to RollsPack print manager Thanh Huynh, the payoff was swift: reduced makeready times, superior white ink laydown and reliable print consistency – even with water-based inks.

‘The best part,’ says Bert, ‘is that it isn’t a moonshot investment. The modularity of our Catena+ system means you can scale up at your own pace. Add exposure today, washout next year – it’s evolution by design.’

The data-driven backbone of that evolution is ProServX, XSYS’s cloud platform that allows for energy monitoring, predictive maintenance and seamless ERP integration. ‘We’re not just selling machines. We’re building an infrastructure for the future,’ Bert says. ‘Flexo needs to speak the language of Industry 4.0 – and we’re giving it the vocabulary.’