$1.5m savings from interns

Companies taking on manufacturing interns through student placement company CEED have reported a combined $1.5 million in cost savings, or an average 330% return on investment in the last financial year.

28 companies, including household names such as Schweppes, Foster's, Parmalat, Australian Aerospace, Australia Post and Bundaberg Sugar, have taken on student projects to streamline processes and reduce waste from their business , cutting time, materials, energy and water.

CEED Director Graham Willett said major manufacturing enterprises could achieve hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra profit from a couple of per cent efficiency savings, due to sheer volume.

"They know they need to address waste but the work needed to find ways of making savings can be onerous, repetitive and take resources away from core business," Willett said.

"But by working with CEED, employees can concentrate on their day-to-day duties and utilise students as a dedicated resource on lean and other manufacturing projects, to undertake systematic research, gather data, record and analyse test results and produce reports."

CEED (Co-operative Education for Enterprise Development) partners with four universities in Queensland and NSW and places around 100 ICT, engineering, business, science and sustainable management students per year into industry and government-based projects.

The company charges clients a small fee to find the candidates and oversee the projects, a portion of which is transferred to the student as a scholarship.

The project counts towards academic credit and more than 40% of CEED students go on to work at their placement companies.

Rhys Jacob, Project Engineer at Amcor, was a supervisor on a lean manufacturing project and a mentor to Jason, an intern at the company.

"The job demanded a lot of time checking and rechecking results and Jason maintained his focus, took into account all the variables and delivered a fantastic report," Jacob said.

"I would encourage other companies to use CEED students for projects of this nature as they greatly appreciate the experience, offer fresh ideas and work hard to achieve results."