Each company may interpret the term "finishing" differently.
Manistee only had 1 finisher, so he would have handled each watch doing something to it. Townsend claims Manistee made 100 watches per day, but I believe their output was significantly less than that probably closer to 50 watches a day. If he spent 8 - 10 minutes on each watch that would have kept him busy most of the day.
William Webster photographed the American Watch Co. factory in 1884 and 1893. In 1893, there were no assembly rooms identified, but there were 6 finishing rooms. Finishing rooms 1 & 2 were staffed with all women; rooms 3 & 4 were staffed with all men, and rooms 5 & 6 were roughly 50/50 men and women, so I wonder if there was some "finishing" job differentiation. It does not describe what was occurring in each room. Were men handling the more complex high jeweled watches and women the others or vice versa? It looks like "finishing" may involve movement assembly and the movement goes to someone else for additional work.
Curious.
Appreciate everyone's responses.... Andy