Engineering systems are usually repairable. The reliability of a repairable system can be represented by failure intensity function. A type of shape of failure intensity function is called a failure pattern. Reliability-Centred Maintenance (RCM) presents six typical failure patterns but its definition is unclear. It is an open issue how to recognize the failure pattern of repairable systems. This paper first discusses the problems of RCM with the notion of failure pattern; then presents the method for failure pattern recognition; and finally proposes a flexible failure intensity function model. The appropriateness of the model is illustrated by a real-world example.