A decision support tool to assist decision-making in the operation of a facility. The decision support tool allows a user to perform planning and scheduling of the events within a facility so that established economic goals do not collide with feasibility of a schedule. This is achieved by flexible time modeling, which introduces a “look-ahead” planning and scheduling technique. This technique analyzes several time periods of the schedule in light of upcoming dominant events, in order for each segment of the schedule to remain as consistent with the planning objectives as possible.