FuturePrint Podcast
FuturePrint is dedicated to and passionate about the power of print technology to enable new opportunities and create new value. This pod features deep-dive discussions with the people behind the tech as well as market analysis, trends, marketing and storytelling!
FuturePrint Podcast
#230 Excelitas: An illuminating Future with Rob Karsten, Excelitas
In this episode of the FuturePrint Podcast, we sit down with Rob Karsten from Excelitas. Rob is the EMEA Sales Director and a leading figure in industrial curing technology. We discuss the evolution of curing tech and its growing impact on the print and packaging industry. With over two decades of experience, Karsten has played a pivotal role in advancing LED-based curing solutions, first at Phoseon Technology and now at Excelitas, following its acquisition of Phoseon in 2023.
As Karsten explains, recent developments of the business has uniquely positioned Excelitas as a global leader in industrial light-based solutions, integrating a compelling range of tech and expertise from a number of brands under one roof. The conversation explores how this consolidation enhances curing efficiency, sustainability, and adaptability—while unlocking innovative opportunities never previously possible.
Key Discussion Points:
- The Transition to LED Curing: How UV LED technology has revolutionized inks, coatings, and adhesives for print applications.
- Excelitas' Expanded Portfolio: Offering a comprehensive range of UV, LED, infrared, and excimer technologies to meet diverse industrial needs.
- Sustainability & Efficiency: How digital curing solutions contribute to lower emissions, reduced energy consumption, and improved performance.
- Customization & Hybrid Solutions: The role of mix-and-match technologies in optimizing print production processes.
- The Future of Curing: Emerging trends in Industry 4.0, smart manufacturing, and predictive maintenance.
As print manufacturers and OEMs seek faster, more efficient, and sustainable solutions, Excelitas is at the forefront of innovation. Tune in for an insightful discussion on how curing technology is shaping the future of print, one wavelength at a time.
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FuturePrint TECH: Industrial Print: 21-22 January '26, Munich, Germany
Welcome to the Future Print Podcast, celebrating print technology and the people behind it.
Speaker 2:And welcome to the latest edition of the Future Print Podcast. Welcome to Mr Rob Carston, who has been a guest on many occasions, and welcome back to the podcast, rob.
Speaker 3:Welcome, marcus. Thank you, it's always a pleasure that we've had some good chats in the past, haven't we?
Speaker 2:absolutely over the years. There's different subjects, topics and and so on. This one's a little a bit more, I would say, personal in a professional sense, because your, um, your role, has developed and changed and obviously a lot of people know you from the back back in the day with fazean technology, um, because you know Fazeum made a huge impact in the market and obviously things have changed a little since then. So I guess we're going to talk a bit about what that means, both for you, for Axelitas although it's not new to you, it may be to some people that still associate you with Fazeum and and also a technological sense, what that actually means to the industry as well, because it offers a lot of new performance attributes and possibilities. So why don't we rewind a bit and and and you give us an explanation about cozy and what that was about and how this has all happened and what's developed and so on?
Speaker 3:Yeah, Well, as you know, marcus, 20-odd years ago we had this crazy idea that you could cure inks and coatings and adhesives using LED technology as opposed to, you know, infrared or UV, and so we started developing the first industrial UV LED light sources to be used in manufacturing printing processes. And we had some early adopters for that technology, which was primarily in inkjet printing. And so over the years that technology developed, we've done some really significant stuff outside of the print industry. So, for instance, we're a major supplier into the fiber optics industry for coatings, where lines are running at 3,000 meters a minute. We do a huge amount of business in the wood coating industry with companies like Ikea on curing coatings on furniture components.
Speaker 3:So there's a lot of things going going on outside that, but our biggest market has always been in the printing industry and that's where we've really succeeded, and particularly on the digital side, where we have a very strong footprint in pinning and full cure, so that that market evolved, evolved, evolved and we started off like, literally you know, five of us around the table I looked after europe, somebody looked after asia. I looked after Europe, somebody looked after Asia, another guy looked after the US and a handful of people were trying to make the things so that grew and grew and grew until we became the world leader in that technology and at that point Excelitas, who were already in the UV LED market through Luma Dynamics, who they'd acquired.
Speaker 3:They were also in the UV LED market through Luma Dynamics, who they'd acquired. They were also in the UV curing market because they'd also acquired Fusion. I wanted to add the world leader in UV LED technology, fusion technology, to their portfolio in what we call the Advanced Lighting Systems, ls. And so back in February 23 now nearly two years ago well, it's literally two years ago today it was on Valentine's Day that it actually happened. Oh really, yeah, yeah. So it's literally two years ago today we were brought into the Exalitas fold.
Speaker 3:So Exalitas is probably not particularly well known as that name in the printing industry. Its origins are in a company called Perkin Elmer who did a lot of control, automation systems, vision control systems and things like that, and so that was the origins of Xelitas and then that became from Perkin Elmer to Xelitos. So they do everything really from if you think about photonics, they do everything from the emission of light, transmission of light and the detection of light, right? So the whole chain and we fit in that bit and we're transmitting light in various wavelengths with LED and we sit in with this, uh within this, what we call the als team the advanced lighting systems and then, literally a year ago in january, we acquired uh, harris noble light, or noble light as it's called. So we now have uh, noble light, novolite, which are a huge manufacturer of IR systems, uv bulbs, led systems and Eximer technology. We had Fosion with the UV LED technology, we had Lumen Dynamics with their LED technology and spot curing technology, and then Fusion Systems, who make the microwave uv systems. So we're bringing that all together into into one division in the company, now under all xla tests. So fosion is now a brand within xla test. Novolite is a brand within xla test. Uh, lumen dynamics isn't, it is another brand and as is, or Omnicure as it's called in there, and Fusion are all kind of covered under that one roof and the idea then is as a company.
Speaker 3:So you're a printer and we have several customers like this already. We were already active with and, and they have active projects in UV curing and a lot of UV curing is now migrating towards LED technology, which is great. But, as you know, in the packaging industry the trend is more towards aqueous water-based technologies for coatings and printing because of low migration issues and things like that. So we've never really had a solution for that because as Fosion we were wed to UV LED technology and that didn't really work. Now there are some exceptions to that, but generally speaking the market trend is towards the water-based.
Speaker 3:And so now that we have the IR, so we have the full range of ir, from just standard ir to near infrared to carbon infrared emitters, which is a really interesting technology, especially for the industry, because it's it's very color neutral compared to some of the other ir technologies which are more tricky to implement when you're using CMYK and so that. And there are very few people who do that technology and we're one of the main ones who do it now. So we have the full range. Whether you want to use Eximer to create certain sort of matting, if you want to use Eximer again, if you want a mercury-free curing solution in UV, you can use Eximer technology in combination with other units. We can combine LED and UV and IR. And so I have, for example, a customer who wants to use IR to cure a primer using UV LED for pinning on a CMYK process and they're interested in looking at an excimer solution at the end to create matting effects on their final print. So we're able, as a company, to provide all those solutions from one source, one supplier.
Speaker 3:And so the other thing, of course, is the way the companies were structured. We had various people here there, everywhere, all trying to do different things. We might have three people calling on the same account, and that's kind of the mess that exists sometimes, the challenges of when you're integrating lots of different companies together. So my role now is previously I was responsible for, uh, for phosyon for europe, so uh, for all our business in all market sectors. We now have a much bigger business, a lot more people. Um, for instance, novel light there are hundreds of people working for noble light, right.
Speaker 3:So what we've decided to do is to split into sort of four functional groups, which is the printing and wood coatings, as it happens to be called.
Speaker 3:Then we have an industrial group, we have a sterilization, disinfection group and then what we call the channel group, which is about our distribution business, and my role then is to head up everything to do with all these technologies and all the teams involved and all the people. For printing and wood coatings and it's the wood cutting sounds a bit odd, really, but in a way it's because we had a very strong foothold in that market already because of led and our work with ikea and people like that and and all these companies, so, um, so I've now been, uh, made responsible for that. That means I have some extra people reporting to me from germany. I have a few more extra people in the uk the existing fozion brand product team, uh. So it's a broader team, a broader market. It's got in some really big customer of ours on the LED side that were customers of they're still customers of Noble-like products, but they're now under the printing division. So that's kind of how that's unfolding at the moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's very exciting right.
Speaker 3:So it gives us lots of opportunities to go into our accounts and say, well, look, you're getting this from us, but you could also do this. You could also do that, and you know how. About this? And yeah it's really opening up more and more opportunities for us, and I think it's good for Novolite, it's good for Fosium.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like just summarizing, I guess that what it's done is it's had many more toys to the kind of game, right, and some of which are in sweet spots as well, right, like you mentioned, packaging wall-based. So you have a solution for that and and I I would imagine it starts to do you get light bulb moments where customers are like oh, we didn't know you could do that, but now you can do this with that and get there and and and. So it's opening up a new sort of track of possibilities for innovation, isn't it?
Speaker 3:yeah, because you get customers go oh I don't know where to go for that or how do we do that, and so that's right. So that's right, I've got an expert. I've got an expert in Germany who can tell you all about that. Right, and we get them involved and we start getting demo systems and samples. We have test centers in Germany right, where we can bring people to. Some of our customers already been there and we've run tests and we can put all kinds of different light sources on the, on the process there and then run them through.
Speaker 3:Indeed, we have a test center in the uk as well, up in in neston, near liverpool, where we can run tests as well. Uh, so you know, it just shows that depth of expertise and knowledge that we have globally right, not just in the. With Pozion, we were very much focused on our facility in Hillsborough in Oregon, which was great, but now we have a lot of that everywhere in the world right, we have facilities in China, in Japan, in Korea and all over the place, so it's a much broader footprint and with literally people in every part of the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So it's really exciting and it offers up that opportunity to grow your business but actually help your customer develop new things. Because obviously, for instance, the packaging let's talk about that. I guess we have Valencia, our Futureprint Packaging, labels and Direct Shape Conference, 2nd and 3rd of April at Valencia, and obviously you're part of that, yeah, and we'll be there and Christoph is giving a talk, I believe from. That's right, yeah, yeah. So tell us a bit about sort of packaging and labels, because I know Excel has. At the last, for instance, label Expo, you had a big booth and that's quite an important market for you. How does this really sort of help the packaging and labels sector and even the dts one, in terms of providing solutions that help um digital kind of expand more, I guess, more more quickly into those markets?
Speaker 3:yeah, well, you know it's certainly very important important within the digital industry to have reliable, cost-effective products. You know these machines are going all over the world and, as we see with digital systems, I know this sort of break-even point further up the chain in terms of volume. And so when you look at the single-pass label printing, there are a number of processes in there, sort of like pinning full cure From our perspective. Now, you know, pinning is a very successful market for us, which is the pre-curing between colors, with partial curing and that pinning activity. We have a whole bunch of different solutions there which are very effective, and then we go right through to the full cure.
Speaker 3:Now the full cure can be anything now. Really, whereas before it had to be LED, it now can be a UV system. It can be a number of different types of IR systems. If you're doing a different type of process down the road, like I said, you could be putting down a primer that's water-based and that needs to be IR. So from our perspective, what it means is that the customer now has an incredible choice of very effective, high quality products that are very reliable, and they've got service and support worldwide, which is another very important factor. So I know that you're looking at a large OEM equipment manufacturer. Service and support is very important to them to know that they have that. We have the processes in place, we have the quality control, we have all the manufacturing accreditation that allows us to make high-quality products and supply them in a reliable and timely fashion, and the manufacturing capacity to deal with large volumes of supply.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's the best of both worlds in many respects. You've still got the innovation, you've got a larger suite of technologies available, the ability to blend on occasions or use the right one for the right purpose, and then and then you've got that kind of infrastructure behind you and service and so on, so people have that comfort too as well.
Speaker 3:That, yeah, deliver and we, you know and that's the other thing too was before we had our fosion engineering team in in oregon. Well, now we have engineering teams in in in canada, we have them in germany, in in japan, and you know there's worldwide engineering service and support expertise. I, uh, when I look at the breadth of products that Excelitus does, we have world-leading experts in optics, in camera technology, vision technology, in semiconductors and LED and such a broad range of expertise and knowledge and we've already managed, through using these resources, taking some of our existing systems and go hey, you guys have a really good knowledge in this. Can you just look at how we're doing this and they go. Well, if you just change this and that, actually you know you have a much better improved performance or reliability or cost base, and that's. We've really benefited from that big time and they benefited from us as well. So we, being the world leader in led in industrial led lamps, we were able to advise other parts of the business about how they were doing and building their lives or something.
Speaker 3:Well, actually, this is what we do and that's why we get that, you know, fabulous reliability, which fozion systems are famous for. I mean, we have customers who are using our LED systems for over 10 years now, right, and they're still performing fine, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think that's really important and just having that financial capital behind you as well, in terms of being able to invest in product development. We have some new products coming out this year which we'll be launching at Ligna, which is the wood coating show. I know it's nothing to do with you guys, but we'll also be taking those products to Label Expo. So there'll be a big part I'm not going to say too much about it, but that'll be a big part of our product releases for this year, and also some new evolutions of existing products from the print industry which are also coming out this year.
Speaker 3:In terms of improved performance and the other thing that's really interesting for us, we have a lot of experts and knowledge in terms of connectivity, industry 4.0, and how we bring those cloud structures and information gathering and data mining and management and predictive maintenance, how we bring that all together. Again, we have a lot of depth of expertise within the company in other areas that we can draw on in our area to help improve what we're trying to offer. Those are the benefits of being really, you know, a big, strong company like Excelitas right and like you say, you get the brands and the expertise and the spirit.
Speaker 2:actually that often happens, doesn't it? Or can happen when sometimes you get acquisitions, the spirit changes maybe, but it doesn't seem like that at all. You seem very enthusiastic and excited and all of that.
Speaker 3:Of course there are changes. Right, you're going from opposing, which is a relatively small company, to this much bigger company, and that comes with its challenges. For sure, we're having to integrate lots of systems and technologies and platforms together, but it's fine.
Speaker 3:You know, you just get on with it. So we did, and some things work better than others and eventually they'll all work fine, but we're on a path towards that and you know, I talk to my guys on a daily basis in my team, in the print and wood coatings team, and you know they're all kind of like yeah, this is great. You know there are things. Yeah, there are things that need to improve, there are things that need to change, but everybody's talking, right, we're discussing it and we're engaging people. We have fantastic IT support teams, whereas, you know, of course, you're with one guy. Right, there are dozens of people we can talk to about Salesforce and all these other things and how we're bringing it all together and customizing it for, you know, people's individual use and for our team.
Speaker 3:And so, yeah, there are tremendous upsides, but there are always challenges. When you're trying to integrate several companies together, that's a challenge, but, but you know we're facing up to it. I think we're doing a great job of it. Uh, but it's not without its challenges, for sure. I don't mind, you know brilliant.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's pretty exciting, and obviously you're going to be in valencia I've just just sort of finishing off, really so, um, you were at the event last year, you personally, and and the business has been a partner of future print, and that, what, what are you looking forward to in valencia? What's what? What's your uh um, view as a future print and and your, you know, your partnership with us?
Speaker 3:yeah, well, I think you know our partnership with you guys really started off during, you know, the covid lockdown period, where everything went into radio silence and pop, pop, future print and say, look, we're going to go do this all online. And you were very, very quick to that and that's absolutely what attracted us to you at the beginning. Obviously no new prior to that, but I think you know, since then, obviously you've evolved and you've matured and, and you know, the online presence is still very important. But I think the you know we're getting know each other anyway, which, at some level, is fine, right, because you do need to do that as well. But what I like about FuturePrint is we get there, we get to see people, we get to talk with end users and people who are working within the industry and talking more about the applications rather than the technologies as such. So that's where I think it's very useful and, as I've said to you on many occasions, you know many good conversations have been had around the bar, right, but it's also about the networking, right is what I'm trying to say, and that's super important.
Speaker 3:I thought last year Valencia was fantastic, really enjoyed that. So I'm really looking forward to it and we've got the leadership thing the day before. It's going to be really interesting, um, yeah. So I just think it's going to be a very interesting, uh, an exciting opportunity to get meet and talk and, uh, I like to get chris long chris is one of our younger guys and get him some exposure and get him out there doing a few things and you know, I volunteered him to do the presentation. I've done far too many and he'll be concentrating more on on talking about how, you know, our technology approach benefits the whole packaging industry. So so we're yeah, we're, we're, we're excited about it. It's going to be good, fantastic, lovely.
Speaker 2:We're excited about it and looking forward to it as well. Yeah, and delighted that you're involved with us still and with Excelitas, and interested to see what Crystal has to say at the event. And yeah, and, like I said, congratulations on your recent promotion as well. Thank you, it's really nice to talk to you about how excited you are about things in the future and that there's lots of positives and opportunities for development of technology. At the end of the day, that's what FuturePrint's about, so thank you for being a part of it, rob.
Speaker 3:So yeah, it's a pleasure, Marcus. Always Good luck and we'll see you in Valencia absolutely thank you for listening.
Speaker 1:If you enjoyed this episode, you can subscribe now for more great audio content. Coming up and visit futureprinttech for the latest news, partner interviews, in-depth industry research and to catch up on content from Futureprint events. We'll see you next time on the Futureprint podcast.
