history of quantity surveying in malaysia

Quantity surveying was brought into Malaya (then call Malaysia) in the 1950’s, which after World War II by the British. Education, skill trainings and quantity surveying were suited into the local needs. During the early times, the number of trained people in this profession was very low and most of them were English people that came from United Kingdom. The locals were only trained up to the ‘working up’ level to assist the QS. (Zaharin Md. Latiff, 1978).

Zulkifli Ismail (1984) stated, generally our QS practice is quite similar such as UK practice. In 1934, people who responsible brought QS services into Malaysia are David Waters and Eric Watson, two British Quantity Surveyors, set up small practice in Singapore under their names “Waters & Watson”. During this period, Singapore is a part of Malaya (Malaysia).

The first major building for which “bills of quantities” were prepared was the Supreme Curt building in Singapore, constructed during the period 1937 until 1939. The QS responsible was David Niven of the Public Works Department (PWD). The beginning of war South East Asia in1941, severely affected the QS profession. The office was kept open and manned by a skeleton staff headed by Seah Mong Hee until January 1742, when the Japanese occupied Singapore.

Davis Langdon & Seah (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd (DLS) practice in conjuction with the practices of Juru Ukur Bahan Malaysia (JUBM) and JUBM Sdn Bhd. Juru Ukur Bahan Malaysia was established in 1972 and is one of the earliest fully Malaysian Quantity Surveying practices to be set up in Malaysia. Today, the DLS-JUBM Group is one of the largest quantity surveying and construction cost consultancy practice in Malaysia and operates throughout Malaysia from five main office located at Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Johor Bahru, Kota Kinabalu. In early 1946, Eric Watson restarted the firm and adds their branch office in Kuala Lumpur (1947) after Japanese surrender in1945. Most of the project that carried out by this company is reconstruction work. In 1949, Seah Mong Hee became a partner and was promoted as senior partner in 1956 following the return of the Senior Partner, F L Angell to the UK. In the same year, the name of the firms was changed to Langdon & Every (Far East). Subsequently, the words “Far East” were dropped to reflect the Firm’s expansion beyond the region. In 1969, the practice changed its name to “Langdon Every & Seah” (Asia, 1940).