CADdillo is free, browser-based 2D CAD for laying out a factory floor: place equipment footprints, draw the clearances around them, trace product flow from receiving to pallet staging, mark utility drops on their own layers, and export DXF or DWG for contractors. It is drafting, not 3D modeling or line simulation.
Nothing to install. 2D plan drafting. Opens and saves DWG and DXF.
Draws today: a straight-through manufacturing plant (receiving dock on one end wall, raw-material racking, a conveyor production line, pack-out, finished-goods racking, shipping dock on the opposite end wall, with offices, QC lab, break room, restrooms and maintenance shop along the front) from 100 x 80 ft to 347 x 243 ft, and a flex bay for light manufacturing (office suite, production floor, assembly area, QC lab, tool crib, shipping and receiving, one dock door and one drive-in door) from 110 x 90 ft to 160 x 130 ft.
Example: “Manufacturing plant, 200 x 120 ft, 24,000 sq ft: receiving dock on one end wall, raw material racking, production line down the middle, pack-out, finished goods racking, shipping dock on the opposite end wall, offices, QC lab, break room, restrooms, compressor room. Export DWG.”
Try this briefExample: “Light manufacturing bay, 120 x 100 ft, 12,000 sq ft: office suite across the front, production floor, assembly area, QC and test lab, tool crib, shipping and receiving with a dock door and a drive-in door, restrooms, break room, compressor room. Export DXF.”
Try this briefExample: “Production plant, 160 x 100 ft: lobby and plant offices, maintenance shop, tool crib, electrical and mechanical room, men's and women's restrooms, break room with lockers, receiving, raw material stores, production line, pack-out, finished goods, shipping. Export DWG.”
Try this briefNot drawn for a manufacturing facility: driveway, parking or landscape site layouts, framing, foundation or structural sheets, a mezzanine, individual canning-line machines such as seamers, nitrogen dosers or palletizers (draw those as to-scale footprints in the editor), routing of process gases to equipment, and a stamped or sealed drawing. It is drafting; your local department and a licensed professional govern.
Draw every machine at its real footprint, then draw the space it needs around it. Three envelopes matter: operation (where the operator stands), cleaning (hose reach, washdown, CIP connections) and maintenance (the space to pull a motor, a filler head or a seamer chuck). The maintenance envelope is usually the biggest and the one most often forgotten.
Plan-view blocks for a 72 in brewhouse vessel, a 60 in conical fermenter, a 66 in brite tank, a grist case with mill, a glycol manifold and kegs, drawn to scale in inches. Use them as stand-ins for vessels of that size.
33 free blocks in 7 families: tanks, pallet racking, conveyors, dock levelers, scales, chillers and compressors, at real equipment footprints. Downloaded as DXF or opened straight in the editor.
A 52 in vertical tank and a 144 x 48 in horizontal tank in plan, for process water, syrup, CO2 or chemical storage.
Four starting plans, from a shop bay to a warehouse, with fixture clearances drawn as geometry on their own layer.
CADdillo has no blocks for filling machines, seamers, nitrogen dosers or palletizers. Draw them as to-scale rectangles, or insert the manufacturer's DXF. It draws the clearance you specify. It does not check clearances for you.
Product should move one way: receiving, process, filling and packaging, pallet staging. Draw that path as arrows on a flow layer first, then fit the equipment and aisles around it, so forklifts and people cross the product path as rarely as possible.
The 40 x 48 pallet and the selective rack bay set aisle geometry. Blocks for pallets, IBC totes, conveyors, dock levelers, a pallet jack and a counterbalance forklift drawn for aisle checking.
Lay out receiving, finished-goods staging and truck doors with pallets at true size, then dimension the aisles between them.
Give each utility its own named layer (power, compressed air, CO2, nitrogen, water, drains) and mark a drop at every machine that needs one. The contractor can then freeze or isolate a single utility without touching the rest of the drawing.
The PIPE command draws double-line runs at real outside diameters (1/2 in to 4 in, or DN15 to DN100), with radiused elbows. Use it for air, CO2, nitrogen and water lines.
Elbows, tees, couplings, reducers and straight runs as plan blocks for power feeds and homeruns to the panel.
Round and square floor drains and a 120 in trench drain, to place under washdown areas and fill lines.
For the building itself, AI MEP routes plumbing, electrical, HVAC and fire sprinkler on a plan you already have, on P-, E-, M- and F- layers. It does not route process gases to equipment.
Six steps, in the order that avoids redrawing. Layers keep each concern separate, so changing one does not break the others.
Draw the walls, columns and doors in feet and inches, or open the contractor's DWG or DXF as the base drawing. Put the building on its own layer and lock it.
Drop in blocks for tanks, pallets, racks and conveyors, and draw everything else (fillers, seamers, packers) as a to-scale rectangle with a label on an equipment layer.
Around each machine, offset a second outline on a clearance layer for operator access, cleaning reach and maintenance pull space.
Run a flow arrow from receiving through process and filling to packaging and pallet staging on a flow layer. Keep forklift aisles and pedestrian paths off the product path.
Put power, compressed air, CO2, nitrogen, water and drains on their own layers, each with a drop marker at the machine that needs it.
Dimension the aisles and offsets, then export DXF or DWG for the contractor and mechanical engineer.
Yes. Export DXF or DWG from the editor and the layers come with it, so a contractor in AutoCAD, BricsCAD or DraftSight opens the same drawing you made. For readers who only need to look, the free converter makes a PDF from any DWG or DXF.
Bayou City Hemp Co. in Houston is laying out the expansion of its canning line in CADdillo: filling, seaming, nitrogen dosing and packaging, with the equipment footprints, clearances and utility drops on separate layers. Read about the project on the Bayou City Hemp expansion page.
It depends on the job. CADdillo is a free, browser-based 2D CAD editor suited to equipment layout drawings, plant floor plans and production line layouts that need to leave as DWG or DXF. It is not a 3D plant modeler or a throughput simulator. If you need simulation or a 3D walkthrough, use a dedicated factory-design package.
Yes. CADdillo runs in a browser tab with AutoCAD-style commands: line, rectangle, polyline, offset, trim, move, rotate, array, layers, dimensions and feet-and-inches input. There is nothing to install and the editor is free to use.
It has free plan-view blocks for brewery vessels, tanks, pallets, pallet racking, conveyors, dock levelers, scales, compressors, chillers, forklifts, floor and trench drains, and conduit, drawn at real footprints and downloadable as DXF. It does not have blocks for filling machines, seamers, nitrogen dosers or palletizers, so those are drawn as to-scale footprints or inserted from the manufacturer's CAD file.
Take the figure from the equipment manufacturer's installation drawing and your safety and code requirements, then draw it. Plan separate envelopes for operation, cleaning and maintenance access, because the maintenance pull (a motor, a filler head, a seamer chuck) is often the largest. CADdillo draws the envelope you specify; it does not check clearances for you.
Yes, as drawn geometry. Give each utility its own layer, mark the drop at each machine, and run lines with the PIPE command or plain polylines. The AI MEP tool routes building plumbing, electrical, HVAC and fire sprinkler on a floor plan; it does not route process gases to equipment, so draw those yourself.
Yes. Export DXF or DWG from the editor, and contractors can open either in AutoCAD, BricsCAD or DraftSight. The free converter turns any DWG or DXF into a PDF for anyone who only needs to read it. Layers carry through, so the contractor can freeze the clearance layer and keep the utilities.
Yes, as a 2D equipment layout. Lay out the depalletizer or can supply, filler, seamer or capper, dosing, labeling, packing and pallet staging in flow order, with clearances, aisles and utility drops on separate layers. It does not simulate line speed or balance the line; it documents the physical layout.
Draws today: a straight-through manufacturing plant (receiving dock on one end wall, raw-material racking, a conveyor production line, pack-out, finished-goods racking, shipping dock on the opposite end wall, with offices, QC lab, break room, restrooms and maintenance shop along the front) from 100 x 80 ft to 347 x 243 ft, and a flex bay for light manufacturing (office suite, production floor, assembly area, QC lab, tool crib, shipping and receiving, one dock door and one drive-in door) from 110 x 90 ft to 160 x 130 ft. Type: say "manufacturing plant" or "factory" for the straight-through plant, or "light manufacturing" or "flex bay" for the flex bay with an assembly area. Size: give width x depth in feet, or the total in sq ft. The plant runs 8,000 to 75,000 sq ft and the flex bay 9,900 to 20,800 sq ft. Use feet and sq ft. Office and production: the offices, QC lab, break room and restrooms sit in a strip along the front wall off one corridor, and the production floor takes the rest of the depth. For the plant, name rooms such as lobby, offices, QC lab, break room, restrooms or maintenance shop. For the flex bay, name the office suite, QC lab, break room and restrooms. Dock doors: the plant draws a receiving dock on one end wall and a shipping dock on the opposite end wall, each with a dock leveler. The flex bay draws one dock door with a leveler and one grade-level drive-in door. The dock doors come with the plan. Racking and storage: the plant draws raw-material and finished-goods racking, and the flex bay draws racks in the assembly area, shipping and receiving, and tool crib, all as selective pallet rack bays, with the pallet-position count written on the sheet. Restrooms and break room: name them; the plant draws men's and women's restrooms and a break room with lockers, the flex bay two restrooms and a break room. After the first drawing, ask for changes one at a time, such as "make the QC lab bigger". Equipment footprints, clearances, flow arrows and utility layers are added in the editor, as in the steps below. Output: end the brief with Export DXF or Export DWG. Example: "Manufacturing plant, 200 x 120 ft, 24,000 sq ft: receiving dock on one end wall, raw material racking, production line down the middle, pack-out, finished goods racking, shipping dock on the opposite end wall, offices, QC lab, break room, restrooms, compressor room. Export DWG."
Not drawn for a manufacturing facility: driveway, parking or landscape site layouts, framing, foundation or structural sheets, a mezzanine, individual canning-line machines such as seamers, nitrogen dosers or palletizers (draw those as to-scale footprints in the editor), routing of process gases to equipment, and a stamped or sealed drawing. It is drafting; your local department and a licensed professional govern.
