From a request in the group chat to a queue your warehouse can keep
The material missing at the work front is usually sitting in the warehouse. It's missing because the request came late, came incomplete or got lost in a chat. Zelo gives every request catalogue items, a usage date and time, a priority and a status everyone can see, and Zelo's AI builds that request from a WhatsApp message.
From improvised requests to planned picking
Four pieces that work together: a catalogue everyone uses, timing rules everyone knows, a request with everything the warehouse needs, and a single picking queue.
Standardized catalogue
One material catalogue for the whole company, with a unique code, unit and description. Import from Excel, re-import your ERP export in update mode, and deactivate items without erasing the history of the requests that used them.
Daily cut-off
Set the hour by which a request makes the plan — 4:00 PM by default — and the minimum lead-time window, from 1 to 720 hours. Requests outside those are flagged as unplanned, with the reason.
Structured request
From 1 to 100 catalogue items per request, built in the app or by the AI from a WhatsApp message, with a quantity, a note per item, a usage date and time and a normal or urgent priority. Every request gets a sequential company number, and a double click never creates a duplicate.
Required justification
An unplanned request needs a justification before it can be sent. The manager dashboard tracks each engineer's unplanned rate over time.
The engineer writes on WhatsApp and the AI builds the request from your catalogue
Nobody has to open the app to ask for material. The engineer sends a message the way they would in the group chat, and Zelo's AI, which runs on Anthropic's Claude model, matches the text against the active materials in your catalogue and replies with a proposal to check.
- Items from your catalogue: the AI maps “cement” and “10mm rebar” to the codes, names and units the warehouse set up, and proposes quantities and a usage date.
- Nothing is created without confirmation: the request enters the queue only after the engineer checks the proposal and confirms it, under the same cut-off and minimum window as a request placed in the app.
- Data protected: phone numbers, user names and the company name are never sent to the AI, message content is deleted once processed, and nothing is used to train models.
See tomorrow's crunch before it arrives
When demand is invisible, the warehouse reacts instead of planning. The manager dashboard shows how many requests are queued for each day, how far ahead they were placed and where the load is about to bunch up.
- 7-day load forecast: requests due on each day of the week, and the hours today and tomorrow when the picking will bunch up.
- Lead-time quality: every request classed as unplanned or placed at 1–2×, 2–5× or more than 5× the minimum window, across active requests and those completed in the last 60 days.
- Lead time per engineer: request volume, average lead time and unplanned rate for the engineers who request the most — data for the conversation, not impressions.
From request to picking, without a phone call
Chat messages and spoken requests leave no trace — when the material doesn't show up, nobody knows where it failed. In Zelo, every request has a number, an owner, a status history and a record of who has opened it.
- Status everyone can see: Pending → Scheduled → In progress → Completed. The engineer follows it in Zelo and is notified at every change.
- Read receipts: the queue shows which requests haven't been opened yet, so nobody has to ask whether a request was seen.
- Cancel and reopen: whoever placed the request can cancel it while pending or scheduled and reopen a cancelled one, and the warehouse is notified either way.
Built for every role in the operation
From the field to the warehouse to management, each person gets what their responsibility needs — and nothing they have to learn to ignore.
For engineers and foremen
- Requests with catalogue items, quantity, usage date and time and priority
- A warning before sending when the request falls outside the cut-off or the minimum window
- My requests: search by number, material name or code, with an always-current status
- Requests over WhatsApp in a single message, read by AI and checked before they're created
For the warehouse
- A single picking queue, searchable by number or engineer and sortable by usage date, priority or status
- Automatic queue refresh and a recent history of completed requests
- On a phone, cards grouped by usage date
- In-app alerts for every new, cancelled or reopened request
For management
- Material catalogue with bulk Excel import and updates
- Configurable daily cut-off and minimum lead-time window
- Dashboard with active queue, due today, next 24 hours, overdue and urgent
- Average lead time and unplanned rate per engineer, over the last 60 days
- Plan usage: material lines used this cycle and the renewal date
