U.S. aerospace giant Boeing has signed a billion-dollar contract with French industrial software company Dassault Systemes to modernize its production system, French media reported Tuesday.

The partnership will focus on the use of 3-D software "to design future products, to modernize the entire production system and to deploy new services." The software allows all stages of production, from the design to the management of subcontractors, to be organized across a single interface.

The primary objective of the partnership is to hasten the digital switchover of Boeing's production system and to give it "a competitive advantage in the commercial field, by reducing excessive delivery times", Le Figaro said.

The software will also be used to "launch new aircraft, satellites, rockets and defense systems" produced by the American giant and to digitize data generated since the 1990s to create an extensive reference library.