Society increasingly depends on electronic systems and components (ECS) whose reliability must be ensured throughout their lifecycle. ECS reliability must be addressed since early development stages and the means used to this end must fit other systems engineering practices. Within this context, we present an industrial approach for model-based reliability-oriented system design. It links model-based systems engineering with Arcadia/Capella and knowledge-centric systems engineering with the Systems Engineering Suite. The approach deals with system modelling, ontology development, structured textual requirements specification, traceability management, and model quality analysis, all of them targeted at ECS reliability. We also present the validation steps taken.