NP hard and microfluidics (Score 1)

Happen to have read this article yesterday while browsing journals/killing time...anything (Harvard chemist) Whitesides writes is must read. But authors emphasize this is a toy (n = 6) problem: don't try scaling this to (e.g.) scheduling 1,000 airliners.And if one airliner breaks down,what do you do: tell the other 999 to sit still while you whip up another microfluidics array...?