中文When a plate-making business moves from a 40 x 60 format to 50 x 80, the equipment invoice is the least interesting part of the decision. Anupama Printing Solutions has completed exactly that step at its Noida plant, and the installation carries significance well beyond one company’s capacity plan. It is the first major Xsys installation in India since the 2025 merger of Xsys and MacDermid.
The configuration pairs a ThermoFlex 80 laser imager with a Catena E 80 LED exposure unit, completed by a processing line and dryer/light finisher. The result is an end-to-end 50 x 80-inch plate production workflow, commissioned in June 2026.
A decade of staged bets
For Sachit Katyal, chief executive of Anupama Printing Solutions, the investment follows a pattern the company has repeated for more than ten years: learn the technology, read where the market is heading, and commit when the timing is right.
“We entered the flexography business in 2015,” Katyal says. Before that the business was in offset printing, offset plate-making and trading. As second-generation management, Katyal took an increasingly direct role in evaluating technologies and identifying expansion routes.
The flexo operation was built initially around Kodak technology. A visit to Labelexpo Europe in 2017 shaped the decision to step up to a larger 40 x 60 Kodak system. The company later evaluated both ThermoFlex and Esko platforms as it worked toward a more automated prepress operation, moved to a new facility in Baddi, and subsequently established a third plant in Haridwar.
The 50 x 80 line is the next stage in that sequence, and Katyal is explicit that it is not simply a capacity purchase. “Our objective was not simply to add another machine,” he says. “We wanted to see how we could improve the flexographic industry in India and provide better-quality plates to printers.”
Where the productivity actually comes from
Prasenjit Das, general manager for South Asia at Xsys Flexo India, points to throughput as the strongest argument for the workflow. “The biggest advantage is productivity,” he says. “Our objective is to meet the print-quality expectations of the market while delivering that quality much faster.”
The ThermoFlex 80 images at 2,000 dpi. The meaningful gain, however, sits in exposure rather than imaging. Das cites plates that previously required around nine to twelve minutes of main exposure now completing in approximately six minutes. On Xsys’ ITP 60 plate the shift is sharper still: from roughly twelve minutes using conventional bank-light exposure to about five to five-and-a-half minutes with LED.
“If you can reduce exposure time by 40 to 50 percent without compromising quality, the customer can significantly increase capacity and productivity,” Das says.
The arithmetic is worth spelling out. Exposure is typically the bottleneck in a plate room, not imaging. Halving it does not halve total plate-making time, but it removes the constraint that determines how many plates a shift can produce. For a trade plate supplier serving multiple printers with unpredictable daily volumes, that is the difference between turning work around same-day and pushing it to tomorrow.
Crucially, the system is designed to slot into existing prepress environments rather than force wholesale replacement. Xsys describes the technology as open, with Woodpecker Replay allowing files generated through other screening workflows to be converted for imaging on the ThermoFlex system. In a market where printers have already committed significant capital to prepress infrastructure, that compatibility is a commercial requirement rather than a feature.
Screening, exposure and the limits of polymer
The technical case becomes more interesting when Woodpecker screening enters the picture. Xsys has developed variants for specific applications: Nevis for white ink and coatings, Sharp for regular printing, and Nano for fine screening, alongside Replay for imported files.
“Woodpecker delivers its full benefit when combined with LED exposure,” Das explains. “With Catena, the exposure is very precise, so the dots and screening patterns are reproduced properly on the plate.”
This is the part that matters technically. Advanced screening only delivers on press if the exposure step reproduces the intended dot structure faithfully. Bank-light exposure varies as tubes age and across the plate area. LED exposure is stable and controllable, which means the surface microstructures the screening software specifies actually survive onto the plate.
Catena also carries a parameter database for different plate technologies, and lets customers build their own recipes and adjust variables such as relief height.
Katyal is realistic about where the gain originates. “The plate itself remains the same polymer technology,” he says. “The improvement comes from what we can achieve through the machine and software.” Software applies different patterns to the plate surface, optimising ink density and the interaction between plate and substrate, with more consistent print results as the objective.
Preparing for wide web
Anupama remains a narrow-web business today. Katyal says 100 percent of current volume sits in that segment. The 50 x 80 format changes what is possible, opening applications in corrugated packaging, while an investment in a Kongsberg table has added capability around staggered, mounting and pre-mounted plates.
“Today, we are fully prepared to enter wide web when the opportunity arises,” Katyal says. The company also sees room to offer a credible alternative to higher-cost plate technologies such as Kodak NX while holding the quality narrow-web converters require.
The constraint nobody can buy
Both parties identify the same limiting factor, and it is not equipment.
Katyal points to a shortage of technical knowledge across parts of the North Indian market. Equipment decisions are sometimes driven by word of mouth, and operators move between companies frequently, carrying process knowledge with them. “We spend considerable time training operators and explaining the benefits of different plate technologies,” he says. He argues the industry needs structured flexographic training, with more attention to the process in technical institutes and colleges.
The stakes rise as the application base widens. Flexography in India now extends well past conventional labels into monocartons, in-mould labels, shrink sleeves, pouches and tubes.
For Xsys, the market presents an uncomfortable combination. Das describes India as one of the world’s most price-sensitive flexographic plate markets. “The growth opportunity in India excites us, but the pricing environment makes profitability challenging,” he says.
That tension, between technology and price, investment and return, equipment and expertise, will shape the next phase of flexo growth in the market. Anupama’s bet is that converters will increasingly pay for what sits behind the plate: faster production, precise exposure, controlled screening and repeatable quality.
Source: The Packman, “Anupama hosts Xsys’ first post-merger installation in India” by Mahan Hazarika, 9 August 2026.
