First Episode of 'We Are Flexo' Explores Past, Present, and Future of Flexo Platemaking

On Friday, April 18, 2025, Esko, a PRINTING United Alliance member, released the first episode of “We are Flexo,” a docuseries reflecting flexography’s past, present, and future. The first episode, titled “Behind the Curtain,” sets the tone for the series by spotlighting some of the people behind the process’s evolution while exploring the technological tools defining their work.

Screenshot of Episode 1 | Credit: Esko

The episode starts in Itzehoe, Germany, approximately 50 kilometers outside of Hamburg. Esko’s VP and GM, Suppliers, Eddy Fadel narrates, “We’re heading to the Flexo Innovation Center. … This is where flexo was born 30 years ago, and it feels like my second home.”

When Fadel arrives at the Esko Flexo Innovation Center, he greets Holger Jacobsen, Esko’s director of operations and sourcing. Fadel then breaks the fourth wall by looking at the camera and explaining to Jacobsen and the viewer that Fadel is “bringing a guest here from the world.”

Jacobsen then promises to take Fadel and the viewer on a tour of the Flexo Innovation Center and its different departments and introduce them to the Esko process. A vintage photo flashes on the screen before Jacobsen unravels his history with Esko. “I started 30 years ago, actually, even a little bit earlier than 30 years,” he explains. “I wrote my master’s thesis here.”

While Fadel and Jacobsen are still in the Flexo Innovation Center’s reception area, Jacobsen walks over to a CDI Crystal 5080. Jacobsen explains this is the actual machine that was in the drupa booth when Esko introduced the CDI Crystal series and XPS Crystal in 2016. (The first Cyrel Digital Imager was installed at Warburger Klischee-Anstalt GmbH in the German town of Warburg in 1996. Inovar Packaging Group in Texas installed the 5,000th CDI in 2025.)

After a short monologue with Fadel explaining his new responsibility for the digital flexo business at Esko and his enthusiasm for rethinking this business unit, the camera returns to Fadel and Jacobsen in the Flexo Innovation Center. They approach a fully automated Esko CDI Crystal XPS 4835 system, which is used for customer demos and benchmarking.

The pair then travels to the procurement office, where Jacobsen shares Esko’s strategic procurement and hand-assembly process, which enables the workers to interact with each part before they become integrated into an Esko device.

Providing insight into Esko’s daily visual management process, Jacobsen says, “Every morning, without any exception, there’s a small cross-functional team coming together from production, from procurement, from logistics, from quality, from R&D.” This is a traveling inspection where the cross-functional team goes, in person, from one assembly station to the next.

Through a visual montage and monologue from Jacobsen, the viewer is taken through a comprehensive tour of how a machine is manufactured on Esko’s assembly line and prepared for shipment, including overseas shipment. The industrial packaging for CDI is extensive and includes smart-and-active packaging features such as a “shock watch,” indicating if the machine experiences a hard drop from a forklift.

Fadel explains CDIs are shipped to almost every country around the world. Jacobsen also playfully retorts, “But if we ship a machine to Fiji, engineers will fight to go there.”

The next Esko executive introduced is Pascal Thomas, who describes his rise from service technician to his current role as director of Esko’s flexo business. Thomas explains that being a service technician is a challenging job but also a highly rewarding one.

Then, the viewer is introduced to Thomas Klein, who is not to be confused with Pascal Thomas. Klein is Esko’s VP of hardware business, who describes Esko’s R&D work and the robust construction of CDIs.

Once the camera pulls away from Klein, the viewer continues on the tour with Fadel. The camera stops short of Esko’s optical laboratory because “it’s top secret.”

The episode ends with a look to the future, with a view of Esko’s Obeya room where the engineers work alongside a prototype of one of Esko’s most recent platemaking concepts.

“Behind the Curtain” wraps with Fadel extrapolating about the definition of the flexo world. Fadel says, “I think the first thing that comes to my mind is family because wherever you go, shows, association meetings, events. You see the same people you have been meeting, you know, over the last 20 or 30 years, and they are like family. They know each other. They have been working — competing against each other or working together — in the last 20 or 30 years.”

To learn more about modern flexographic printing techniques and best practices, check out the Color Management Professional Flexo Certification course from PRINTING United Alliance’s iLearning+. More information about the interactive online course can be found at https://www.ilearningplus.org/courses/color-management-professional-flexo-certification