Boeing signs $1bn contract with Dassault Systemes

PARIS: US aerospace giant Boeing has signed a billion-dollarcontract with French industrial software company Dassault Systemes to modernise its production system, French media said Tuesday.

"Boeing has signed a 30-year contract worth a billion dollars, renewable every 10 years," said Le Figaro newspaper, which is owned by the Dassault group.

The partnership will focus on the use of 3D software "to design future products, to modernise 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 organised across a single interface.

"From start to finish, Boeing will drive all levels of subcontracting, from the largest to the smallest, and will be able to control exchanges between its divisions and its partners,"  Bernard Charles, Dassault Systemes CEO, was quoted as saying by Le Figaro.

The contract, won after two years of competition, is "the most important ever signed by Dassault Systemes, which becomes Boeing's strategic software partner in civil aeronautics, but also in defence and space," he added

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 defence systems" produced by the American giant and to digitise data generated since the 1990s to create an extensive reference library.