Is remote monitoring mandatory in WHO's oxygen plant specifications?

No. The 2024 WHO technical specifications list remote monitoring as optional for oxygen generator plants, and the 2020 interim PSA specification also listed it as an optional feature.

What should the service contract say about remote support?

WHO (2024) says the SLA it suggests should state the time-to-response for remote support and for on-site intervention, and Global Fund guidelines (2024) ask the contract to set the timeframe within which the supplier responds to remote support requests.

Should a PSA tender require remote monitoring?

Q: Should an oxygen plant tender require remote monitoring, and which data should it cover?

WHO's 2024 technical specifications for oxygen generator plants list remote monitoring as optional, with any need to integrate it into a computerised maintenance management system to be specified, plus data export; in UNDP procurement, REQ-OXY-001 (2025) asks the end user to monitor purity, flow and pressure, in real time if available.

Should an oxygen plant tender require remote monitoring, and which data should it cover?

What the specifications say

The WHO Technical specifications for health facility based medical oxygen systems (31 December 2024), whose oxygen generator plant specification supersedes WHO's 2020 interim specification for PSA plants, list under the control panel: remote monitoring (optional), with the instruction to specify the need for integration into a computerised maintenance management system (CMMS) if applicable, and data export functionality such as a USB port, SD card or Bluetooth. The 2020 interim specification also listed a remote monitoring feature as optional, and remote support for installation, use and maintenance among its functional requirements.

WHO's Foundations of medical oxygen systems (2023) notes that some technologies, such as PSA oxygen generator plants, allow vendors to do remote monitoring and that, where feasible, this enables live reporting and tracking of system dysfunctions. In UNDP procurement, REQ-OXY-001 (effective 1 January 2025) asks the end user to set up a continuous monitoring plan for critical parameters such as purity, flow rate and pressure, including real-time monitoring if the capability is available, and to produce regular production, maintenance and repair performance reports.

What the control panel should show

None of these documents lists the values a remote link should carry. The 2024 WHO table does list items the plant's control panel should display and alarms it should raise, including:

Item	WHO (2024) oxygen generator plant table
Oxygen production	Product purity, always explicitly visible; sieve bed pressure; output pressure; flow (optional, recommended)
System status	Standby mode; maintenance needed; cumulative hours of operation
Air compressor and dryer	Dew point; temperature
Alarms	High temperature above 40 °C; low or high pressure below 5 bar or above 8 bar, unless specified otherwise to align with the applicable standard and system design; oxygen concentration below 90%; power failure and system failure; secondary or reserve source activation; air dryer pressure dew point above 3 °C

The same document names GSM or CDMA and TCP/IP links, where applicable, only for telemetry on liquid oxygen (VIE) tanks; for oxygen generator plants it does not name a communication technology.

Remote support in the warranty and service contract

WHO (2024) asks for a warranty of at least 1 year from commissioning with 24 hours a day, 7 days a week remote support for manufacturer defects and for a guaranteed period of post-warranty support from the PLC manufacturer for software and firmware updates, and suggests an after-sales service level agreement (SLA) that states the time-to-response for remote support and for on-site intervention. UNDP (2025) says the SLA must specify technical support responsibilities, including remote diagnostics, and Global Fund service contract guidelines (20 May 2024) ask the contract to set the timeframe within which the supplier is expected to respond to remote support requests. See what a medical gas maintenance contract covers.

Ultra Controlo

The ULTRAOX datasheet (2022, p. 16) lists a touch screen showing oxygen purity, flow, total volume produced, pressure, maintenance information, a record of all contingencies and alarm information, and an electrical control panel with all alarms on an interface for remote signalling. The ULTRAOX SC and ST datasheets (p. 4) list a complementary information control box for building management systems (BMS). Details are on does Ultra Controlo offer remote monitoring.