It had been proven that Onrust Dock of 5,000 tons could handle all Dutch warships and even some bigger ships.

[5] After consultations between the ministries for the navy and the colonies, a commission for dry dock facilities in the Indies was appointed in January 1904.

This meant that goods had to be transloaded to ships via boats, considerably raising the cost of calling at Surabaya.

On 22 September 1910. the Droogdok Maatschappij Soerabaja (DMS) was established to manage a dry dock facility at Surabaya.

Under normal circumstances, it would not be large enough to lift the armored cruiser HNLMS De Zeven Provinciën, which had been launched on 15 March 1909.

Later plans for battleships would have led to ships which would have been too wide and high for the 14,000 tons dry dock.

In June 1910, the 473 feet (144 m)-long ocean liner Prinses Juliana of 8,085 GRT, and 12,190 ton displacement was launched.

If these ships could not rely on a suitable repair facility in the Dutch East Indies, their owners might prefer to use the alternative in Singapore.

In 1907 there was talk about dredging the approaches to Surabaya, and the capacity of the dry dock having to become larger than was previously thought.

[14] In November 1910, the Minister for the Colonies Jan Hendrik de Waal Malefijt presented a design for a dry dock of 120 m long and 12,000 tons lift capacity, but by then M.P.

[15] In December 1910, Minister de Waal Malefijt then appointed a commission that was to decide on the type and size of the dry dock.

The East Indies would meanwhile have to make plans for the mooring place (Navy base or new port of Surabaya) and the management of the dry dock.

[16] The commission consisted of: Mr. de Jongh, ex-director of the Public works of Rotterdam (chair); jhr Op ten Noort, member of the board of the Nederland Line; D. Goekoop, chairman of the society of the Dutch shipbuilding industry; Mr. Kloos, chief engineer of Nederlandsche Fabriek van Werktuigen en Spoorwegmaterieel; Fenenga, manager of Amsterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij; Mr. C. Nobel, manager of Rotterdam Public Works, and future manager of Tanjung Perak; Lt-Captain Umbgrove; and Mr. van Beek, chief-engineer and director of navy ship construction.

As she was made for the Amsterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij, her dimensions did not matter with regard to reaching open sea.

The only alternative to transport such a wide dry dock from Amsterdam to the North Sea, was to tow it over the Zuiderzee.

At 11 AM the saloon motor boat Alkmaar left the De Ruijter Quay (southern bank of the IJ near Centraal Station) with a number of high-ranking guests.

[26] On Saturday 21 June at 4 PM tugboats started to tow Surabaya Dock of 14,000 tons over the Zuiderzee towards Nieuwediep.

The transport of the dry dock to Surabaya had been confided to the tow service Zur Muhlen en De Graaf, which had prepared its strongest tugs.

The armored cruiser HNLMS Jacob van Heemskerck and some smaller navy vessels came out to wish the dry dock a good voyage.

[33] In Aden, the convoy waited for the monsoon to pass, diminishing the chances for bad weather in the Indian Ocean.

For the Droogdok Maatschappij Soerabaja (DMS), the delays meant that in November 1913 one expected the port, and specifically the location for the DSM, to be completed two years later than planned.

Therefore, the dry dock company did not send the equipment for the planned repair shipyard with about 60 machines to Surabaya.

[37] After World War I started in July 1914, there was a strong demand for dry dock capacity in the Dutch East Indies.

By November 1914, the East Indies government had proposed that the minister for the colonies make a second attempt to come to an agreement with DMS.

[39] In early January 1915, Surabaya Dock of 14,000 tons was towed and fixed into position, and a test was done to submerge its deck.

By October 1915 there was news about new negotiations between the East Indies government and DMS in order to lease the dry dock and to move it to the new port.

The original plan was that the first self-docking of Surabaya Dock of 14,000 tons would take place after 5 years in the Dutch East Indies.

The lengthening was done by DMS building two small extra dock sections on its own shipyard in Surabaya.

This was also true for the dry dock company Surabaya, which built a lot of ships, and was engaged in the desperate attempts to build up the defense of the Dutch East Indies.

In September 1959, the dry dock company in Indonesia was officially nationalized by the Indonesian government, with start date 3 December 1957.