Safety analysis in Systems Engineering (SE) processes, as usually implemented, rarely relies on formal methods such as model checking since such techniques, however powerful and mature, are deemed too complex for efficient use. This paper thus aims at improving the verification practice in SE design: considering the widely-used model of EFFBDs (Enhanced Function Flow Block Diagrams), it formally establishes its syntax and behavioral semantics. It also proposes a structural translation of EFFBDs to transition time Petri nets (TPNs); this translation is then proved to preserve the behavioral semantics (i.e. timed bisimilarity). After proving results on the boundedness of the resulting TPNs, it was possible to extend a number of fundamental properties (such as the decidability of liveness, state-access, etc.) from bounded TPNs to so-called \emph{bounded EFFBDs}. Finally, these results led to implement and integrate an operational formal verification tool within a development platform, used in systems design for defense applications, where the underlying complexity is totally concealed from the end-use