An ultrasonic magnetostrictive transducer-based phased-array system for imaging defects in plate structures is newly proposed. In that most ultrasonic phased array systems rely on piezoelectric transducers or electromagnetic acoustic transducers, this system has its own unique feature of employing magnetostrictive transducers. Interest in using a phased array system using magnetostrictive transducers has been recently reported for pipe inspection but no such system has been developed for plate inspection. In this investigation, we aim to propose a phased array system using OL-MPTs (Omnidirectional Lamb wave Magnetostrictive Patch Transducers) for plate inspection. The developed system consists of a multi-channel function generator, power amplifiers, preamplifiers and a data acquisition unit. In the process of its development, each of the units must be checked and in doing so, we suggest types of ultrasonic wave experiments that should be carried out. Finally, the phased system using a transducer array composed of eight OL-MPTs is newly configured and is applied for actual crack detection experiments.