As the costs of offshoring production are becoming increasingly onerous for U.S. companies, and as American manufacturers worry more about the security of their intellectual property, many businesses are discovering that it makes more sense to keep production operations at home.

Last year, Manufacturing Trends and News concluded that "changes in the economic environment are making homeshoring more and more attractive, with a number of manufacturers actively moving their offshore operations back to the home turf."

But it's not U.S. firms anymore. The U.S. is becoming an increasingly attractive location for foreign businesses to operate, largely due to the boom in shale gas production that is making energy costs lower.

"Shale gas has become a game-changer for the U.S. manufacturing renaissance," Sath Rao, vice president of industrial automation and process control at market research firm and business consultant Frost & Sullivan, told IMT. "Abundant quantities and subdued prices are helping U.S. manufacturing fortunes."

One thing that's causing domestic companies, at least, to rethink their production locations is the "total cost of ownership," or TCO. When taking into account the cost of quality, delivery, transportation, energy consumption, labor monitoring, carrying stock, freight, packaging, and all other aspects of production, instead of focusing only on labor costs, it might make more financial sense to keep production at home.