Highest quality and consistency make flexo stand out from gravure

Ghent, Belgium – Esko customer Inci.Flex, a flexo and gravure prepress business based in Fisciano (Salerno province), Italy, has further differentiated itself as one of the first companies to install a brand-new CDI Crystal 5080 XPS flexo plate production system. 

The company specialises in the production of plates for printing of flexible packaging and labels for the food and beverage industries as well as other sectors. Since its founding more than 30 years ago, Inci.Flex has always been committed to providing its customers with the highest quality plates. To that goal, they innovate the technologies they employ on a regular basis.

“Esko has been a key Inci.Flex partner since decades,” says Enzo Consalvo, Managing Director of Inci.Flex. “We already have two CDI Spark 5080s with Full HD Flexo, a Kongsberg XN 22 cutting table with the Digital Flexo Suite, as well as the entire state of the art prepress software solution from Esko (including PackEdge, ArtPro, Plato, DeskPack, Studio, Automation Engine, Imaging Engine and Color Engine). This end-to-end, highly automated workflow has allowed us to provide exceptional customer service and differentiate ourselves in the marketplace with high and reliable quality. Now, with our new CDI Crystal 5080 XPS flexo plate production solution, we are taking quality and customer service to yet a higher level.”

The CDI Crystal 5080 XPS solution not only enables Inci.Flex to surpass the great quality already provided by Esko Full HD, but is also part of a wider Inci.Flex project, designed to achieve complete automation of the plate production process, thereby reducing human error and speeding up productivity or our plate making operation. 

CDI Crystal 5080 XPS flexo plate production system highly reduces the complexity in the plate room. It truly brings innovation to the production of flexo printing plates. After imaging the plate on the CDI Crystal 5080, the plate is transferred automatically to the exposure unit. The unique simultaneous back and front exposure of the flexo printing plate uses UV LED heads that are far more precise and deliver a higher plate consistency. The combined solution requires fewer manual steps and thus gives higher productivity with 35% less operator time needed to process a plate compared to competitive solutions. The Esko CDI Crystal 5080 produces the perfect plate for all flexo print applications that require highest flexo print quality and stability on the press.

“In addition to the automation and increased capacity achieved with our new Esko CDI Crystal 5080,” Consalvo added, “its ability to produce more stable and reliable dots on the plate ensures our customers achieve excellent printing results across the entire tonal range. This delivers perfect highlights, stable halftones, shading towards zero, smoother transition and more dense, full, uniform solids. Thanks to the high print quality, we are able to offer printers the ability to create high quality flexographic packaging which stands up to comparison with gravure printing. It has become a true marketing tool for us with our customers.”

“Our long-time partnership with Inci.Flex has been valuable to both parties,” commented Pascal Thomas, Director Flexo Business of Esko. “We are delighted they again trusted Esko to implement the new CDI Crystal 5080 XPS flexo plate production solution, making their company a showcase of the benefits of an end-to-end Esko workflow.