Innovating Today for Tomorrow

Here on the Perfect Finish, we are going deeper into the creation of our trusted KILZ^® primers. There are many people here who work on the KILZ brand that strive to bring the best primer products to market every day to anyone who is interested in getting the job done right. Whether you are a “Do it Yourselfer” or a professional working on a client’s home, the KILZ Research and Development team works hard to innovate today for better products tomorrow.

Why is Research & Development (R & D) important for the KILZ^® brand?

At the core, the KILZ brand has a commitment to excellence which includes creating world-class products for consumers. While excellence is difficult to attain, it is something that we not only aspire to but is of our culture and modus operandi. Specifically, the Research & Development team creates and supports KILZ industry-leading architectural coatings products by innovating today for tomorrow’s needs. We focus on the customer by fortifying our position as the industry leader in product quality and performance, using experimentation to find innovative solutions, and adding value to existing products in the realm of performance, longevity, ease of application, and cost.

How does the R&D team continue to add to the success of KILZ products?

KILZ continues to have industry-leading architectural coatings by recruitment, mentoring, and empowerment of the best available people. What separates a good product development program from a great one is the diversity of talent. This means not just hiring the smartest chemists available but also hiring those with diverse skillsets, those who are highly creative and collaborative, are excellent communicators, have top organizational skills, as well as those with project management and mechanical skills, for example.

What process goes into creating a new KILZ product? How are our legacy products maintained?

It is important to offer new product solutions and continue to add value to existing products in the realm of performance, longevity, ease of application, and cost management to our KILZ product portfolio as it leads to increased consumer satisfaction and eventual brand loyalty. Our vision is to be our customers’ first choice for all their architectural coatings needs.

As such, KILZ uses a process whereby new products and ideas are created and vetted. This type of process is well defined, cross-functional, and time-bound. Throughout the process, there are several check-ins making sure we are meeting not only our internal but external customer needs.

R&D plays a role throughout the entire process giving input as necessary, whether it is searching for technical gaps, giving input on how complex the project will be and how familiar we are with the technology needed, and evaluating resource availability. The R&D team is also responsible for collaborating with different departments to make sure the prototypes meet the project scope, the product claims and the consumer’s expectations.

Each KILZ product, whether it is new to the market or those that are product legacies, undergo routine chemical and physical paint property testing which helps predict, verify, and determine the coatings performance and compliance. We use the most up-to-date industry-standard test methods including those from ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials), MPI (Master Painters Institute), ANSI (American National Standard Institute), JIS (Japan Industrial Standards), and ISO (International Standardization Organization). We monitor customer level feedback, application, perform exposure series, benchmark our competition, and submit our products for third party testing so we understand where our products stand in the market but also to help us improve the consumer’s experience making us one of the top trusted paint brands in the US (United States).

Always remember to refer to our website kilz.com or product back labels for additional information on which primer is right for your project and detailed instructions on how to apply our products. Check out our Coverage Calculator to understand your estimated paint needs for your upcoming project.