This is generally a excellent article and it provides some excellent information for people who are new to importing/manufacturing. So I want to be careful not seem critical as the advice here is solid. With that said, I would like to take this the next level, as while written very well, its mostly from a very "outside of China" perspective. Its also really just a brief introduction to quite an extremely complex topic.
There are times when you do NOT want to deal directly with the factory. Let me repeat that - There are times when you do NOT want to deal directly with the factory. Going on my 11th year in China, I can tell you that learning to speak Chinese is the easiest part of the entire process. In other words language is not really the biggest obstacle to overcome. Understanding the local business environment, your expectations, their perceptions etc - this takes much longer and is much harder then learning Mandarin. Unless you are willing to invest the years / money / headaches at times its faster and more efficient to work with someone who can get the job done. So if your job is not completely straightforward (and remember - what's straightforward to you may not be to the Chinese) I would not rule out working with a third party.
Also there sometimes are some excellent smaller factories but because they are not accustomed to working with foreigners going direct to them would be virtually impossible even if you knew where they were.
There is a ton of conversation on the web about this topic from a some very qualified people and this discussion is really just the tip of the iceberg. Some blogs on this topic I would recommend would be:
http://www.acf-china.com/blog/catego...ors-suppliers/
http://silkroadintl.net/blog/
http://www.chinasourcingblog.org/
http://www.smartchinasourcing.com/
These are just a few... all worth looking over...
