The number on the surface of a new tile is more or less the filename of a CNC gcode program that can create a new tile to a precision quite a bit higher than you can see visually... You can read a tangentially related discussion of this here.
http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum14/HTML/000534.html
There's at least 20K HSRI "model numbers" and over the years probably many more as revisions were made, they made lots of Q+A test pieces and there were many revisions and lots of repairs and there's a lot more than just black HRSI tiles, I'd estimate somewhere in the realm of "way more than 10M tiles" were made over the years. The hotter they get the smaller and thicker they have to be, something about differential thermal expansion stresses or something.
The TPS as a whole was quite a technological accomplishment.
Consumer products are designed to be sold where Discovery and commercial aircraft where designed to be used. Occasionally consumer products will evoke that style such pre-linovo IBM laptops. Corporate jet's are the other side of the coin where company's focus on style not just function so dispite low production runs there far sleeker than 140 Boeing 787 Dreamliner out there.
Also, this is constantly repaired, updated, etc., not just thrown away and replaced by another one.