AV Flexologic has announced that it has won the FTA Technical Innovation Award for its patented innovation, the RoboCELL. This is the company’s second FTA Technical Innovation Award. The Flexographic Technical Association (FTA) presents the FTA Technical Innovation Award to recognize companies that showcase outstanding advancements and creativity in the field of flexographic printing. 

“We are truly honored to receive the FTA Technical Innovation Award again,” says Martijn Otten, managing director of AV Flexologic. “This recognition is a testament to our team’s unwavering dedication to excellence and our ongoing pursuit of developing technologies that drive the flexographic printing industry forward.”

In 2007, AV Flexologic won its first FTA Technical Innovation Award for its first-generation fully automatic flexo plate mounter, FAMM 1.0. Fast forward to 2023, and the company has once again been honored with this accolade for RoboCELL.

RoboCELL offers complete robotization of the prepress department. It includes robotic sleeve handling (RoboSLEEVE), robotic tape application (RoboTAPE), robotic plate loading (RoboPLATE), and fully automatic mounting (FAMM 3.0).

RoboCELL fully automates the sleeve and mounting workflow, combining tape application, plate mounting, and sleeve handling using patented technology from AV Flexologic. The system eliminates manual intervention, allowing sleeves to be selected, tape applied, sleeves delivered to the mounter for automatic plate mounting, and final sleeves filed to a cart, ready for the press.

Components of RoboCELL

• RoboTAPE: A robot with a taping tool that applies tape fully automatically, spiraling tape onto the sleeve, resulting in substantially less tape waste compared to manual taping and eliminating manual taping-related mistakes that cause press downtime.
• RoboSLEEVE: A gripping tool with different adapters depending on the sleeve, handling and delivering sleeves throughout the RoboCELL work area. The RoboSLEEVE helps the robot apply tape and safely handle and load/unload sleeves.
• FAMM 3.0 plate mounting machine: A fully automatic mounting machine for flexo plates that works with RoboCELL to load and unload sleeves.

“We would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to the Flexographic Technical Association for acknowledging our efforts and to all our partners, clients, and team members for their continuous support and belief in our vision,” adds Otten. “We remain committed to shaping the future of flexographic printing, one innovation at a time.”