Simple issues can still take time. Considering the...

Simple issues can still take time. Considering the start-to-finish process for producing a MEMS device like the DSRChip takes several months if access to machinery is 24/7, as each process deposits a nanometres-scale layer of material, before further processes chemically dissolve away other parts...

The point is, you might be able to build a house out of timber in a few weeks, but the processes required to produce silicon devices are slow, and cannot be sped up.

So if anything goes wrong at all, it is a big delay. Hence "missing every mile stone".

Some people who are used to thinking in terms of a week's delay being a big thing, can't wrap their head around the MEMS production timescales, no matter how hard they try. Like a man from the year 1700 trying to imagine how a jumbo jet can fly a third of the way around the planet in a matter of hours carrying hundreds of people on it. Just impossible for the mind.