Construction logbook
The construction logbook (dziennik budowy — the statutory site diary under Polish construction law) is an official document: it has a designated keeper, a chronology of entries, and a defined circle of people authorized to write in it. From a process standpoint this means one thing: it is the only place on a construction site where chronology is enforced by law, not by habit.
Since 2023 the logbook can also be kept electronically (EDB), in a system run by GUNB (Główny Urząd Nadzoru Budowlanego — the national building-control authority). The investor chooses the form — paper or electronic — and that decision is binding for the entire project.
SourceElektroniczny Dziennik Budowy (EDB) — GUNB
Why this matters when digitizing the process
The construction logbook is a register of events, not a register of operational data. It does not replace the daily report, the material register, or the as-built measurement — and conversely, no internal application replaces the logbook. A typical mistake when designing a system is attempting a "logbook 2.0", which ends in entering the same information twice.
The practical boundary: the logbook answers the question what formally happened and who attested to it; operational registers answer how much, where, for how much, and in what state. A custom application makes sense where the answer to the second question is currently assembled by digging through emails and spreadsheets.
Sources
The substantive basis of this text. Items marked as own practice do not come from a document — they are delivery experience that cannot be verified with a publisher.
- DocumentGeneralny Dyrektor Dróg Krajowych i Autostrad / GDDKiA Oddział w KatowicachSTWiORB DM.00.00.00 (GDDKiA technical specification, in Polish), item 6.7.1 — „Dziennik Budowy” listed first among the Site Documents (p. 30)
- RegulationGUNB
Where we write about this
Where information gets lost in construction document flow
Seven points where information on an infrastructure contract disappears or loses credibility — and what can be done about them without deploying a system.
Construction dashboard: 12 data points that need an owner
A ready list of fields without which a construction management dashboard shows opinions instead of state. For each field: responsible role, source, and update frequency.