Situation :
The story begins in 1999 inside ROIRET EXPO, regional company handling electricity services management for the EUREXPO Exhibition Centre in LYON.
Why?
The trigger of this adventure was the awareness of too many breakdowns on exhibition stands. Too many breakdowns => many people requested => many problems to handle and a weak profitability.
How ?
To give an economic reality to the project, the confidence of a client was necessary. In 1999, the managers in charge of operations in the exhibition venue of EUREXPO in Lyon are convinced by the potentiality of the project and give the financial resources to ROIRET Expo to handle the first developments.
The very first phase of R&D (Research and Development) was effected in partnership with LEGRAND design office, on the concept of an electrical box, kind of a portable socket outlet combination in rubber. This project came to an end considering delays and costs incurred.
The original idea was rapidly considered as an obvious challenge. Challenge on technical aspects with a new product on the edge of existing systems. Challenge to schedule a project to realize within 12 months instead of the 3 years generally requested for such projects. Finally, financial challenge, implying costs objectives very far from usual practical industrial experiences.
A project, a meeting, it is often quite simply that unlikely projects can become a reality. KEOPS Story has been possible thanks to the confidence of a manager from a big industrial manufacturer of electrical components, leader in electronic products of measure and control.
Gathering rapidly his development teams, the project has grown rapidly and became a reality with the first studies as well as the first designs.
Numerous unseen projects have not been considered, such as this electrical box “robot” version inspired from science-fiction movies.
Despite the hard work of everybody, numerous problems remain and the predicted launch for September 2000 must be postponed for several months.
The terminal, initially composed of existing components, finally requires developments of specific electronic cards. Time is not on our side and by the end of the year the first prototype and first designs are made in CAD.
The final terminal takes shape with the target to create a product with a design radically different from standard electrical terminals. "What is different inside must be visible outside"
The first green terminals are rapidly called KEOPS. They are tested and spread in EUREXPO in the course of 2001.
The first presented version (V1.0) can be fine-tuned from 0 to 20 kW. It has a smart card reader available for technicians and exhibitors.
Technicians can set up the terminal thanks to a special card and define the parameters of the exhibitors order form. Exhibitors also have a smart card to trade with the sales department to exhibitors.
The revolution is for everybody, they suddenly exchange their screwdrivers and the usual agreements for smart cards and a monitoring system. The jolt is violent and so are the reactions.
Any change leads to a certain number of resistant people who are all the more reluctant that they are used to make profit of it.
4 years later and more than 1500 products are in use, the adventure of the smart terminal continues with the creation of CUBE TECHNOLOGIES. The version 2 of KEOPS is imagined on the existing basis for the biggest exhibition centre in Paris: Porte de Versailles.
At that time, it was a technological challenge to control 3000 terminals communicating through WiFi and grouped together over 200 000 sqm. 2005 marks the beginning of developments for the WiFi and the technological challenge is real since nobody has ever controlled in real time so many terminals.
The adjust of this part has required the development of a special protocol between the software and the terminals in order to take into account all the restrictions of this kind of venue.
At the end of a European tour of major exhibition centres with the green terminal, it has been established that its functionality arouses a clear interest but its look does not seduce : too big, too green, etc. The terminal has to change and to become “modular”.
In 2007, CUBE TECHNOLOGIES launches an ambitious R&D program of nearly 1 million Euros supported by OSEO Innovation for the design and construction of a new smart, communicating and modular electrical box, called V321R (download the documentation 
). The 3rd version of KEOPS is born during the second semester 2007.
This product delivered to the Palais des Congrès in Paris, answers to different restrictions of size, storage, electrical distribution and Internet access required by the operational teams of the venue.
CUBE TECHNOLOGIES teams do not only optimize the KEOPS terminal, they also think to its environment.
Rapidly an issue is coming up concerning the upstream 32A electrical connector. Until now it was carried out with individual banana connectors having real problems of integration and security of use.
A work in partnership with operations teams gave the opportunity to define real specifications and to realise to first 32A connector specialised for exhibitions, called KCS (download the documentation ) meaning KEOPS Connecting System.
Among the characteristics of this connector; let us cite its flat shape to snake under partitions or its locking system to be used without a residual current device upstream.
The concept of smart and communicating electrical box reaches a full maturity in 2009. With a production of more than 3000 units, CUBE TECHNOLOGIES still improves its version of V321R (download the documentation ) and equips it of the KEOPS ICM (download the documentation ) and AMxx (download the documentation ) components.
All the latest innovations are gathered together in this version : reinforced handle with a stacking system on the removable free standing support.
Supplying a 32A KCS (download the documentation ) plug, a protective glass on the ICM in polycarbonate with a worked out shape to enable stacking of electrical boxes and then reduce the necessary room to stock them, etc.
2009 is also for CUBE TECHNOLOGIES the occasion to propose an innovative product Support and numerous services to Users like renting additional products with CUBE SERVICES.
Until 2009 , CUBE TECHNOLOGIES has proposed a solution called «KEOPS SOLUTION » built around the monitoring software KEOPS MANAGER, linked to the KEOPS electrical boxes.
In 2010, Geneva PALEXPO wishes to use the concept and the advantages of the original KEOPS Solution, but into a different environment. The requirement is to settle elements of the solution inside the infrastructure of the venue, in close proximity to the main transformer.
After a year of development, a new KEOPS Solution is born and called KEOPS INFRA. It includes ICM and AM entirely reviewed to match the venue requirements.
Moreover, a new software module, Infra, is added to the existing KEOPS MANAGER software with numerous functionality entirely dedicated to the monitoring of electrical infrastructures, such as for instance the control of the network load in real time.
2009 is a pivotal year wedged between the 2008 crisis and new economic uncertainties. In order to meet the new demands of the clients and especially the smallest exhibition centres , CUBE TECHNOLOGIES begins from 2010 a new revolution of its original concept.
The target is this time to give access to the KEOPS Solution to all venues that do not wish to change their material but simply to complete it with the smart and communicating part.
CUBE TECHNOLOGIES invents then a new solution called KEOPS DISTRI based on the concept of a shared intelligence able to control several outputs.
Main advantages of the solution, it can receive the existing electrical boxes of the venue and make them intelligent and communicating at a cheaper cost.
