Manufacturing reports more workplace accidents to DOSH than any other sector. In the first five months of 2025, 2,320 of the 4,409 accidents DOSH recorded were in manufacturing. Behind every one of them is a report, an investigation, corrective actions to chase and, often, a procedure to rewrite. For a plant with one safety officer and an OSH coordinator who also has a day job, that load is real.
| Indicator | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Occupational injuries, manufacturing (2023) | 10,335 | DOSM |
| Occupational diseases, all sectors (2023) | 8,155, of which 82.8% noise-related hearing loss | DOSM |
| Accidents reported to DOSH, Jan–May 2025 | 4,409, of which 2,320 in manufacturing | DOSH via Bernama |
DOSM national occupational injury and disease statistics 2023 (released Nov 2024); DOSH figures reported by Bernama, July 2025.
That last number in the table deserves attention: noise-induced hearing loss dominates occupational disease in Malaysia, and it is a manufacturing problem first. It is also a documentation problem, because noise risk assessments, audiometric testing and hearing conservation programmes all generate records.
What changed for factories in 2024
On 1 June 2024 the Factories and Machinery Act 1967 was repealed and its requirements folded into the OSH Act 1994, alongside two new instruments: the OSH (Plant Requiring Certificate of Fitness) Regulations 2024 and the OSH (Licensed Person) Order 2024. The same amendments require every employer with five or more employees to appoint an OSH coordinator (section 29A, with a penalty of up to RM50,000 for not doing so) and to carry out risk assessments. DOSH’s 2024 PRisMA guidelines add psychosocial risk assessment to the list, and the government has said mental health at work will become a legal duty under the OSH Master Plan 2026–2030.
Environmental duties sit on the same desk. Under the Scheduled Wastes Regulations 2005, generators must notify the Department of Environment within 30 days and may store waste on site for up to 180 days and 20 tonnes without approval, and since July 2024 the most serious EQA offences carry fines of up to RM10 million.
Six AI workflows for a plant HSE team
- Inspection checklists built for each line or area, then findings reports generated from inspection photos and notes.
- Incident reports and root-cause analysis, with AI facilitating a 5 Whys or fishbone so investigations reach the system cause.
- Chemical register and SDS summaries: one-page handling summaries for the shop floor from long safety data sheets, checked against the original.
- Scheduled-waste records: a tracker that flags waste approaching the 180-day or 20-tonne limit.
- Noise and ergonomics programmes: drafting the hearing conservation programme, training material and the trend analysis of audiometric results.
- Monthly HSE statistics and the health-and-safety indicators (fatalities, LTIR, people trained) for group or Bursa sustainability reporting.
What about cameras on the shop floor?
Computer-vision vendors report striking numbers. Protex AI, for instance, says steelmaker Nu-Iron cut site incidents by 44% year on year after adding AI monitoring to its existing CCTV. Treat vendor figures as claims to test in your own pilot, and involve your data protection officer early: under the PDPA amendments, biometric data has been sensitive personal data since 1 April 2025. Our PDPA and AI guide covers what to check.
AI drafts; the competent person decides. In a 2024 study, GPT-4o answered 84.6% of 385 professional safety-exam questions correctly, but was weakest on emergency response and fire prevention, and small prompt changes moved its score by up to 13.5 points. That is a capable assistant, not a signatory. For plant with a certificate of fitness or anything involving a licensed person, AI is a drafting aid only; the statutory checks stay with the people the law names.
A 30-day plan for one plant
- 1Week 1: choose two workflowsInspection reports and incident write-ups are good choices: frequent, time-consuming, easy to review.
- 2Week 2: build the prompts into your templatesSame structure every time, so supervisors get consistent output.
- 3Week 3: run it alongside the old wayCompare quality and time on real reports, with personal data handled in approved tools only.
- 4Week 4: set the review rule and report the resultWho signs what, and the hours saved. Then pick the next workflow.
Two days for plant HSE teams and OSH coordinators on AI-assisted inspections, incident reports, chemical and waste records and HSE statistics, using your own templates.
Public dates coming soon — in-house classes run on your dates.
Also tailored for oil and gas, construction and plantation and logistics. For wider AI use in factories, see our manufacturing case study.
HRD Corp claimable. AITraining2U is an HRD Corp registered training provider. Our public and in-house courses are claimable under the HRD Corp Claimable Courses (SBL-KHAS) scheme, and we prepare the grant paperwork with you. See HRDC-claimable AI training: courses, costs and how to claim.