Program News
Center for Lean Logistics and Engineered Systems Partners with Local Law Firm for Lean Six Sigma Training
Date Published: January 16, 2013
Incorporating Lean Six Sigma management methodology is relatively unknown in the legal world, but technology-driven Hunoval Law Firm in Charlotte is raising the bar. Partnering with the University of North Carolina at Charlotte Center for Lean Logistics and Engineered Systems, Hunoval Law is offering Lean Six Sigma training to its employees and has already incorporated its strategy into key business processes.
Matt Hunoval announces the start of the Lean Six Sigma education program with UNC Charlotte to the staff of Hunoval Law Firm.
“The driver here is client results,” said firm founder Matt Hunoval. “A firm like ours has a very different focus than a large general practice firm doing multi-billion dollar deals that are highly customized and non-repetitive. A lot of what we do is highly process oriented, where you are dealing with the same basic set of form documents with minor transaction-specific variations, which is the perfect environment for Six Sigma analytics.”
Six Sigma is a data-driven, quantitative management tool first used in manufacturing, and then adopted by large financial institutions.
“This is the language spoken by our larger institutional clients, so I’ve made a commitment for it to be the language of my law firm,” Hunoval says. “This is not a passing fad, not a management flavor of the week.”
Six Sigma training for Hunoval takes place on the UNC Charlotte campus in a five-week program customized specifically for the practice. It’s designed to provide a Lean Six Sigma certification, so employees will be skilled in quickly identifying defects and redundancies, eliminating waste, and translating work into faster processes done with fewer errors.
This is the first time UNC Charlotte’s Center for Lean Logistics has partnered with a law firm.
“Through proper training and cultural change, we believe that law firms such as Hunoval can create a dynamic continuous improvement culture, where the employees will be part of the solution, identifying and solving system-related issues as they arise,” said Dr. Ertunga Ozelkan, Director of Systems Engineering and Engineering Management at UNC Charlotte. “Lean Six Sigma will give them the proper methodology and toolset.”
The UNC Charlotte training programs covers a wide breadth of Lean Six Sigma education, from the very basic overview levels to the most advanced theoretical mathematical levels. By using real-life examples from the law firm, the training demonstrates how Six Sigma process analysis works to create less room for error and better efficiency throughout the workday.
With the addition of Lean Six Sigma to the law firm’s business processes, Hunoval is excited about delivering a streamlined operation for clients, thereby saving them time and money. “Right or wrong, many clients tend to think of lawyers as Don Quixote figures nobly tilting at windmills, but somehow not quite getting it,” Hunoval said. “Partnering with UNC Charlotte in Lean Six Sigma we’re planning to change that perception.”
At the announcement of the Lean Six Sigma partnership between Hunoval Law Firm and UNC Charlotte are, from the left, UNC Charlotte Instructor Dr. Jonathan Mayhorn, Director of the UNC Charlotte Center for Lean Logistics Dr. Gary Teng, Hunoval Law Firm Founder Matt Hunoval, Hunoval Director of Six Sigma Kevin Divine, UNC Charlotte Engineering Dean Dr. Bob Johnson, and UNC Charlotte Director of Systems Engineering and Engineering Management Dr. Ertunga Ozelkan.
Dr. Ozelkan Receives Certificate of Recognition from IIE Lean Division
Date Published: May 25, 2013
Dr. Ertunga Ozelkan received a Certificate of Recognition from the Institute of Industrial Engineering Lean Division on May 20, 2013 at the IIE Annual Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico for outstanding contributions to the IIE Lean Division and dedicated service in the board of directors. Dr. Eileen Van Aken (IIE Senior Member, Professor at Virginia Institute of Technology) presented the certificate on behalf of the IIE Lean Division.
CLLES and Hunoval Receives IIE – ELSS Best Paper Award – Second Place
Date Published: Sept 24, 2013
Dr. Ertunga Ozelkan from CLLES and Kevin Divine from Hunoval Law Firm have accepted the second place award on behalf of the CLLES faculty and Hunoval project team at the IIE’s Annual Engineering Lean Six Sigma Conference in Atlanta, GA on Sept 24, 2013. The paper titled “Lean Six Sigma to Reduce Lead Times in Legal Business Processes” has been co-authored by Kevin Divine, Cara Clausen, Tiffany Smith, Cameron Scott, Kim Beacham, Matt Hunoval from the Hunoval Law Firm, Charlotte, NC and
Drs. Ertunga C. Ozelkan, S. Gary Teng, Jonathan Mayhorn from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC. The purpose of this paper is to present how the Hunoval-UNC Charlotte team introduced metrics and measures into the legal business processes, and present step-by-step results from greenbelt projects, which produced significant improvements reducing lead times in the first legal action milestones for default services both judicial and non-judicial foreclosure states, North Carolina and South Carolina, respectively.
Dr. Ozelkan Receives Best Teaching Award from the IIE Lean Division
Date Published: May 21, 2006
Dr. Ertunga Ozelkan received IIE Lean Division Excellence in Teaching Award. The award was handed to Dr. Ozelkan by the IIE Lean Division President Dr. Beth Cudney (Missouri S&T).