> It's quite absurd to me that the manufacturing of planes by Boeing has less stringent QC done by themselves on their main components provided by vendors than

> It's quite absurd to me that the manufacturing of planes by Boeing has less stringent QC done by themselves on their main components provided by vendors than many consumer electronics do for their suppliers. That's quite a claim. A single modern airliner is 300,000-500,000 parts (depending on the model) that have to be manually inspected by multiple people compared to a tiny IC that can be automatically tested by a machine or a PCB that can be electrical tested with automated probes. From TFA: > Boeing requires fastener holes in this section of the plane to be drilled at .2475 inches, which provides a near-perfect “interference-fit” that best retains air pressure during flight. Instead of drilling at that size, Spirit workers were directed to drill holes using a .2495 drill bit, to clear excess paint from the holes and speed up a slow process. Oh and by the way, each hole has to be checked to within _2 thousandths_ of an inch.... They're not even remotely comparable. An ASML UEV lithography machine is on the order of a 100,000 parts so that'd be like Intel and TSMC taking apart and running a precision CMM over every part on their main machines thousands of times a year (during which Boeing ships and inspects about 500 new planes).