ICE AI - Pioneering AI-Driven Talent Development and Workforce Transformation in Malaysia
- Customer
- HRD
- Project manager on the customer side
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- IT Provider
- HRD Corp
- Year of project completion
- 2023
- Project timeline
- December, 2022 - October, 2023
- Project scope
- 359000 automated workstations
- Goals
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The ICE AI initiative, spearheaded by HRD Corp, aims to transform Malaysia’s workforce development through the use of advanced AI technologies. One of its primary goals is to automate and optimize the grants processing system, significantly reducing turnaround times from days to hours. This improvement enhances operational efficiency and eliminates the bottlenecks associated with manual processing.
Another key objective is to create a scalable solution capable of accommodating the increasing demand for training applications and claims, as Malaysia’s workforce continues to expand. This scalability ensures that the system can process a higher volume of transactions and applications as workforce numbers grow.
Improving service delivery is also a core goal of the ICE AI project. By increasing both the accuracy and speed of fund disbursements, HRD Corp can offer superior service to employers, training providers, and employees, ensuring quicker and more accurate support for all stakeholders.
Aligned with Malaysia’s strategic economic goals, ICE AI supports the nation’s transition to a high-income, knowledge-based economy. It does this by equipping the workforce with the skills necessary to excel in Industry 4.0 and the 5G economy, fostering growth and development on a national scale.
Operational excellence is a cornerstone of the initiative. By integrating AI, machine learning, and intelligent character recognition, ICE AI automates complex administrative processes, continuously improving accuracy and efficiency. This commitment to AI-driven excellence allows HRD Corp to streamline operations while delivering high-quality results.
Additionally, the system is built with resilience and future-proofing in mind. ICE AI is designed to handle an ever-growing number of transactions without sacrificing accuracy or speed. This ensures that HRD Corp will be able to support workforce development well into the future as demands evolve.
Lastly, ICE AI is driving innovation in the public sector. Its transformative use of AI sets a new standard for operational excellence, positioning HRD Corp as a leader in AI-driven workforce development. The project’s success is expected to influence industries and governments globally, highlighting the potential for AI to revolutionize public sector operations.
- Project Results
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The results of the ICE AI project, as outlined in the document, are remarkable and transformative:
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Dramatic Reduction in Processing Time: ICE AI reduced grant processing time from an average of 154 hours to just 19 hours, resulting in an 88% reduction in turnaround time. This automation has eliminated bottlenecks in the manual grant approval process, leading to unprecedented efficiency.
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Significant Increase in Capacity: ICE AI has shown extraordinary scalability, handling 359,170 grant transactions in 2023, up from 239,776 in 2022 and 107,911 in 2021. This represents a major improvement in processing capacity, demonstrating the system’s ability to grow with increasing demand.
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Financial Impact: The system has enabled HRD Corp to collect RM 2.0 billion in levies and distribute RM 1.4 billion for workforce training and upskilling, benefiting 2.14 million individuals. In the past year alone, ICE AI supported the training of 1.2 million trainees, positioning it at the forefront of Malaysia's economic transformation.
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Grant approval step reduced from 41 steps to 10 steps. improvement of 75%
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Grant query step reduced from 42 steps to 22 steps. Improvement of 48%
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The uniqueness of the project
The uniqueness of the ICE AI project lies in its transformative application of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and intelligent character recognition (ICR) to revolutionize the way HRD Corp manages workforce development at a national scale. Unlike traditional automation systems, ICE AI learns and adapts, continuously improving its accuracy and efficiency. This dynamic capability allows it to significantly reduce the time for grant processing from an average of 154 hours to just 19 hours—an 88% reduction, demonstrating a remarkable leap in operational efficiency.
ICE AI is also uniquely designed with scalability in mind. Whether it’s processing 10,000 or 1 million transactions, the system maintains high performance and accuracy, ensuring that HRD Corp can keep pace with the growing demand for workforce training and development as Malaysia’s economy expands. This scalability, combined with its cloud-based infrastructure, ensures the system’s future-proofing and reliability, something that sets ICE AI apart from other government-led initiatives that often struggle to handle rapid growth.
Another standout feature of the project is its direct impact on Malaysia’s economic goals. By streamlining and accelerating the disbursement of funds for upskilling and training, ICE AI contributes to the country’s strategic ambition of becoming a high-income, knowledge-based economy. The project equips the workforce with the necessary skills for Industry 4.0 and the emerging 5G economy, linking the application of AI directly to national development objectives.
ICE AI also pioneers a new model for AI integration in the public sector, showcasing how governments can harness AI to optimize large-scale, complex administrative processes. This level of public sector innovation is rare, making HRD Corp’s initiative a global case study for AI-driven transformation. The project positions HRD Corp as a leader in AI-powered workforce development, setting a new standard for operational excellence in both public and private sectors globally.
In addition, the cloud-based design of ICE AI ensures seamless and scalable infrastructure, allowing for real-time data processing and integration with HRD Corp's extensive network of training providers and trainees. This makes ICE AI a resilient and reliable backbone for Malaysia’s national workforce development efforts.
Finally, the global significance of ICE AI cannot be overlooked. The project not only sets a benchmark for how AI can be applied to solve large-scale workforce challenges, but it also serves as a model for other governments worldwide. Its success is expected to inspire similar AI-driven initiatives across ASEAN and beyond, cementing Malaysia’s leadership in utilizing advanced technology for national and economic growth.
- Used software
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The ICE AI project utilizes a variety of software, equipment, and auxiliary systems to automate and streamline HRD Corp's grant application process. The key components are as follows:
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ICE AI Suite: The core system, leveraging artificial intelligence for automating the grant application process. It includes intelligent automation tools for real-time decision-making, replacing manual efforts with automated workflows.
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eTRiS Dashboard: A cloud-based dashboard that interacts with the ICE AI system. It serves as the primary interface for grant applications, enabling data input, monitoring, and management of the entire grant processing cycle.
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Xtract and Crux Modules: These modules handle document classification, matching training provider names, course titles, trainee information, and validating various details like NRIC, training schedules, and allowances against the Allowable Cost Matrix (ACM).
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Allowable Cost Matrix (ACM): A key validation tool integrated into ICE AI that ensures training costs and allowances are within predefined limits.
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Cloud-Based SaaS Model: The entire system operates on a cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) model, offering scalability, cost-efficiency, and seamless updates. This model also supports faster implementation and pay-as-you-go options
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- Difficulty of implementation
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The implementation of the ICE AI project faced several challenges, primarily due to the scale and complexity of automating HRD Corp’s manual processes.
One key difficulty was ensuring the seamless integration of AI, machine learning, and intelligent character recognition technologies into existing systems while maintaining service continuity. The project required a significant transformation of workflows, from manual to automated, which involved change management to help employees adapt to new technologies.Additionally, scalability concerns had to be addressed, as ICE AI was designed to handle a growing volume of grant applications. Ensuring the accuracy and reliability of the AI algorithms was also critical, especially during the system's learning phase. Furthermore, the transition from legacy systems to a cloud-based SaaS model required overcoming security, data sovereignty, and network challenges. Despite these difficulties, ICE AI's successful implementation significantly enhanced HRD Corp’s operational efficiency
- Project Description
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HRD Corp's Role in National Workforce Development:
As an agency under the Ministry of Human Resources (MOHR) Malaysia, HRD Corp plays a critical role in driving Malaysia’s talent development aspirations. Through the collection of a levy from employers and the funding of training and development programmes, HRD Corp supports the upskilling and reskilling of the Malaysian workforce. In recent years, HRD Corp has expanded its mission to include employment facilitation, industrial training placements, career coaching, and developing income-generating opportunities for Malaysians across diverse skill sets, backgrounds, and capabilities.
Project Overview:
The Intelligent, Cognitive, and Enterprising Artificial Intelligence (ICE AI), developed by Human Resource Development Corporation (HRD Corp), represents a quantum leap in digital transformation, revolutionizing the landscape of grants processing for talent development in Malaysia. By harnessing the power of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and intelligent character recognition (ICR), ICE AI has redefined operational excellence at a national scale, turning bureaucratic bottlenecks into streamlined, intelligent workflows.
The deployment of ICE AI embodies a world-class digital transformation initiative, driving unparalleled efficiency and setting new benchmarks for how government-driven workforce development can be managed across economies.
Project Scope and Objectives:
ICE AI was conceived with the singular goal of reinventing the way HRD Corp serves the nation’s workforce. With over 93,580 employers, 6969 Training Providers and 4.7 million employees under its care, HRD Corp needed a breakthrough solution to replace outdated, manual processes with scalable, intelligent automation. The core objectives of the ICE AI project were:
1. Automate and optimize grants processing, reducing turnaround time from days to hours.
2. Ensure scalability to meet the growing demand for training applications and claims from Malaysia’s burgeoning workforce.
3. Deliver superior service quality to employers, training providers and employees alike, increasing both accuracy and speed in fund disbursement.
4. Support Malaysia’s strategic goal of becoming a high-income, knowledge-based economy by equipping the workforce with the skills necessary for Industry 4.0 and 5G.
- Project geography
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The ICE AI project is primarily focused on Malaysia, serving as a national-level initiative to transform the country’s workforce development. As an integral part of HRD Corp, which operates under the Ministry of Human Resources (MOHR), the project directly impacts over 93,580 employers, 6,969 training providers, and 4.7 million employees across Malaysia. While its immediate scope is national, the success of the project has drawn regional and global attention, particularly within the ASEAN region.
The innovative use of AI in workforce development has positioned ICE AI as a model for public sector transformation, potentially inspiring similar initiatives in neighboring countries and beyond. Its scalability and cloud-based infrastructure also provide the foundation for extending the system’s capabilities to international partners and collaborators in the future.
- Additional presentations:
- HRDCorp_GrantAutomationProject.pdf