Dear Dr Oluwole Alfred Olatunji

I am not sure that I understood your question well , I think it depends on the size of contractor company , if it is about contractor for big projects , I think the grade of company , well reputation of company in previous projects, quality certificates ,.. can be enough , but about subcontractors the situation is a little bit complicated ,  I think about subcontractor we may ask them to do a very small sample work in our project then we may evaluate their quality of work

If you ask a different question you may find a more useful result - "how do you predict the success of a relationship between contractor and contractee".

That question assumes Geoffrey Vickers explanation of business as maintaining relationships through time as being the best tool to understand events and ideas in commerce. Both sides have to work for the enterprise to succeed. The question you have asked leads an inquirer to just look at one side of the equation; unwise.

Perikles' response ads value; including the warning of closed shop.

As an interesting allegory the first rule of training dogs to work with sheep is to train yourself to the disciplines of effective sheep handling with dogs. The shepherd must be clear and disciplined in what they do as well as have a well trained and tractable dog. That principle seems a universal construct for many areas of activity.

Something that does not warrant the performance of a contractor but it would be their past performance history is to say that Prestige has. This information should be a requirement for hiring.

When we have not any clear cut tool for performance prediction, then we have to focus on past track record, how they perform in past/ does they fulfill their responsibility? Does the complete task in promised time so on so forth.

In short we have to focus behavior.

Few aspects to be checked:

1. Reputation and goodwill of the contractor

2. Experience in the field

3. See and evaluate the completed projects

4. Financial strength

5. Track record of the contractor and its team

6. Check the reliability,

7. Etc. ... .

Past performance does guide; but do both sides have the commitment to make it work. Before the event there is never a guarantee.

You also need to know what is the real job being undertaken. Consultancy advice in management either tells centralised firms to decentralise or decentralised to centralise - the major job is a "cover the arse" for executives involved.

Check how the responsibility for risk is distributed between the owner and the contractor.

If the contractor has assumed responsibility for project risks, it is a known indicator for better project (contractor) performance. If the owner has contracted the risk out to the contractor, the project (contractor) will perform poor.

Another known indicator for successful project is the front loading of the project. If your project material is bad, the contractor will perform terrible.

In general much poor performance by a contractor starts at the owner of the project - and not necessarily at the performance of the contractor. So don't trust the past performance of a contractor as a clear guidance of how your contract will go - look at your self and decide if the contractor has an honest chance of performing good.

you are the one who has to shortlist the contractors for award of contract. most important is your concern and type of contract then comes the credibility of contractor.

credibility of the contractor is ruled out if go for comprehensive contract with strong clauses in your favor. 

coming over to the question asked by you: you claim only past performance and composition of team in this past performance. if slope is positive and team is same or not same you can predict positive. if it is undulating you can evaluate patterns.

regards

contractor performance is influenced in great measure by the employer's ability to dutifully fulfill his own part of the contract. The first step is to check your own record of performance with contractors.

If this is your first contract you must seek references on the prospective contractor from reputable firms. If not then first ensure that you are in a position to fulfill your own part and then check the contractor's past records and discount for organizational changes that occurred within their firm since their last successful job of similar scope.

At the end of the day performance is a function of effective monitoring and feedback and implementing agreed control measures. Decision making involves risk because full information is not a real world possibility.