the principal steps in manufacturing a metal-plated mirror are substrate fabrication, plating, and final surface finishing. the intermediate specifications for these operations, as well as the final specification, are developed (ideally) during an iterative planning process that includes the optical designer, the project engineer, a metrologist, and if necessary a coater (for a final thin reflective coating). each of these specialists identifies problems and offers solutions that might not be considered without them. the outcome of this process is a plan for meeting the customer's specifications that balances cost, schedule, and technical risk. in practice, however, a lack of expert input to the planning process often arises because of limited funding or personnel and/or simply from a management structure that hinders information exchange. this can lead to unreasonable intermediate specifications and/or incompatibilities among manufacturing steps. the goal of this paper is to describe issues that affect the ability of the surface finisher to meet specifications. some of these issues are inherent to the finishing process, while some are due to incompatibilities with other manufacturing steps. since it is the finisher who often has the final manufacturing responsibility for meeting performance specifications, he must contend with problems and deficiencies accumulated throughout the manufacturing process. 4 refs., 1 fig., 4 tabs