The posts about out-sourcing are interesting.
But to what extent is Boeing, or any aircraft design organisation, expected to understand how all these out-sourced components behave when bolted together?
It is now over 30 years since the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch trashed Boeing for not understanding how simple actuators worked in Chinook, after a fatal accident. Five years later, the RAF Director of Flight Safety said the company (Boeing Helicopters/Vertol) was unsuited to being a Design Authority, partly due to the same lack of understanding. The following year the company admitted it hadn't a scoobie about how new fuel computers and software worked.
There is something in the ethos of the company that worries me. These problems are recurring. There's a lot of people in MoD UK thinking - released an aircraft with dodgy safety critical software? - been there before. It can't all be down to downsizing and savings.