This is often an economic decision because overseas trips are expensive. Anyway you should visit each of your factories at least once a year. You can combine this visits with Trade Fair, it will help you not only to save on costs, but also to find new opportunities, new products. Visiting the factory also depends on the quality and performance of your factory. A factory that makes problems all the time doesn’t worth to work with, otherwise one day you will not get your goods in time or the goods will be made not by your requirements. If you can't walk away from them because they have unique products that you must have, you will have to visit them more frequently.

Another way to control your factory is to have an agent in China, recently a lot of companies just hire a guy to live in China. He is professional in his field and he can make quality checking of goods any time you want. Better if he can speak Chinese, otherwise there will be a language barrier. Your agent can be a company in China, who can make fast decisions and provide the information needed.

Visiting the factory take the one who can help you to take decisions, who you can ask advice. China is changing so fast, that you would be surprised how much change occurs at the factories in a year. They can change the technology, can change products and a good manager of factory can leave. So you will have to make everything from the start, to explain everything to a new manager. Be ready for everything in advance and don’t forget to take your pen and notebook.

Since you will be visiting several factories during your trip, it is very likely that one of your factories will hint about other struggling factories. You can know some new factories that way. But if you stay in your country the news will never rich you. In other words visiting China will give you lots of information, lots of opportunities, you just need to be ready to absorb.