Vision Systems Incorporation (United States)

Like in many associations, the ordeal undergone by secretary in ensuring all is well is back breaking. Exceptions make a rule and my tenure was to my delight. Active members are in the knowhow of activities ensued through the year. This secretary's report is customary and an opportunity for members who could not catch up. In comparison, Vascular Surgery and its advancements are less known than other fields of medicine. To promote awareness, VSI sponsored two programs. One was spearheaded by Dept. of Vascular Surgery, CMC Vellore. The deliberations were at Kotagiri. The other was an initiative by Dr. Narenthranath Meda at KIMS Hyderabad. Both were well received. The XIth Mid-term meet at Bangalore was a thumping success. More than forty-five residential postgraduates in peripheral vascular surgery from the teaching institutes spread all over India have actively participated. The Karnataka Vascular Surgery team with Dr. Ravikumar at the helm ensured elaborate food for thought and stomach. Our President Prof. S R Subrammaniyan has attended the ESVS 32nd Annual meet at Valencia, Spain. Representing our body, he shared of our activities of current and yesteryears. To facilitate his communiqué, he had taken along posters and brochures. VSI sponsored and gave travel grant to Dr. Sravan CPC, JIVAS, Bangalore and Dr. Pranay Pawar, SRMCH, Chennai to attend the 23rd European Vascular Course on 4th – 6th march, 2018 at Maastricht, Netherland. Dr. Ajay Savlania was selected for SAAVS-VSI's Travelling Fellowship for the year 2018. Our senior members, Prof. Dr Vidyasagaran (in WFVS) and Col, Dr Kumud M Rai (in ESVS) represented us in good light at international forum. The report presents an abstract of main activities. This besides numerous activities were executed which strengthens our society. On behalf of VSI, I thank Jammu team for their excellent management of what has turned out to be a successful and highly stimulating annual conference. I am sure that everyone must have told you this. Such a conference involves enormous amounts of time and energy and you must have been working so hard lately for everything to fall into place as it has. Hats off to Dr Arvind Kohli, Dr Gurjit and team! Signing off with a sense of accomplishment and as one blessed to serve esteemed VSI.

The results are in for the 1998 VLSI Research Inc. customer satisfaction survey on semiconductor capital equipment, and the overall ratings have increased by 0.10 points, to 7.28. This outcome is the effect of improved customer support and equipment performance by Japanese and American suppliers. One of the reasons for the year's enhanced effort is the lack of growth in the equipment market. Although focusing on customer satisfaction is important under any circumstances, companies often increase their attention to customers as sales decrease. As a consequence of this extra attention, the competition for customer satisfaction is increasing. For example, every year the top companies improve the previous year's score, and the top ratings in all five product categories have increased in the last two years. Another example of competition is the convergence of scores among areas of the world. In the 1996 survey, the difference in ratings between first place (European suppliers) and last (Japanese suppliers) was 0.87 points, but this difference decreased to 0.78 points in 1997. In the 1998 survey, European manufacturers still have the highest ratings and Japanese have the lowest, but the difference is now only 0.40 points. The main reason for this immense change in the past year is a surprising decline in ratings for European suppliers. This article analyses survey results for each of the three supplier groups, and looks at the reasons behind the convergence in customer satisfaction ratings.