As advances in instrumentation, networks, and production processes make data more prevalent within operations, the integration and modeling of information from across these varied sources is becoming a critical differentiator for improving process productivity, asset reliability, resource management and EHS performance. Although many technology solution providers have their own applications to access and store the related data, it is often only available to meet very specific and limited functional needs. When data is recognized as a critical asset and managed as part of an infrastructure, however, it can become a key enabler to help transform the entire operating location. By making all process and production data available, and providing information in a context model based on functional needs, operations can drive improved results against their critical business impacts. This presentation will introduce the concept of a data infrastructure and show how a related strategy can help deliver operational intelligence to enable real-time action and decisions, provide a common platform for analysis, and establish standardized KPIs to measure and evaluate ongoing performance.