Abstract This paper describes a method for automated generation of Failure Modes and Effects Analyses from SysML models containing block definition diagrams, internal block diagrams, state transition machines, and activity diagrams. The SysML model can be created in any SysML modeling tool and then an analysis is performed using the AltaRica language and modeling tool. An example using a simple Sensor, Processor, and Actuator shows the approach. Introduction Failure modes and effects analyses (FMEAs) are required for certification of complex aircraft systems as described in SAE ARP 4754A and are one of the most important activities to support both reliability and safety. They enumerate potential failure conditions (failure modes), predict their consequences through defined levels of the design hierarchy (effects), assess the severity of the consequences, and identify existing or potential mitigating features that can reduce the impact of the failure. The importance of FMEAs in the product development process can be seen by the fact that there are multiple standards that define how the technique should be used in specific industries and applications [ 3], [4], [12]. Many applications of FMEAs for software incorporated into mission or safety critical systems have been documented [ 5], [6], [7], [8], [9]. Although extremely important to the development of safe and reliable systems, FMEAs are generally created manually and are therefore prone to omission errors even when performed by skilled analysts. Furthermore, because they are labor intensive, they are costly to perform and hence are done only once, near the end of the design phase. As a result, most necessary design changes needed to improve safety, reliability, availability, or maintainability requirements identified through the FMEA process are deferred due to limited resources or budget or performed at great cost (if they are needed to meet requirements) after the system has been built, integrated, and tested. The motivation of the work reported here is to provide the capability to automate generation of FMEAs so that they can be performed early and often during system development. Significant cost, schedule, safety, and reliability benefits could be achieved if the FMEA process could be moved to earlier design changes and be completed at each level of system development. The Object Management Group (OMG) Systems Modeling Language (SysML) [1], whose development was sponsored by the International Council of System Engineering (INCOSE), is widely used in Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE). As used in in this context, “modeling” is the creation of data structures that represent aspects of the system under consideration. MBSE is the formalized application of modeling to support systems requirements, design, analysis, verification, and validation activities beginning in the conceptual design phase and continuing throughout development and later life cycle phases. SysML can represent system requirements, composition, interconnections, and behavior. Components, properties, and interfaces are written only once into the model and propagated to wherever they occur. Hence, whenever a change is entered into the model, any incompatibilities and constraint violations are detected immediately because (a) the change is propagated to all instances of the affected components and (b) the linkages (associations, connections, and interfaces) within a SysML model immediately show the impacts of the change to interfaces, lower level requirements, testing, and other development items. Hence, MBSE in general, and SysML in particular, have the potential to reduce the development costs and schedules of complex systems. However, they do not explicitly address the key attributes of reliability and safety . The objective of the work described in this paper is to integrate an automated FMEA generation technique with SysML models developed as part of the MBSE proces