Design and safety of the heel plays an important role in the construction of woman's shoes. When troubles such as braking and cracking of heels occur during walking, the heel makers are responsible for paying compensatory damages. Therefore, it is necessary to control the heel strength. The performance of a commercially available heel fatigue tester which utilizes continuous small impacts is excellent. However, several hours are needed to test one heel. As the designs of women's shoes are constantly changing and production periods are short, and it is necessary to determine the break characteristics of heels in a short time. We have developed a new instrument for the determination of heel strength and conducted research on how to make quick judgments on the brake characteristics of heels. Combined with the practical characteristics determined by the heel maker, the measurement method was applied to the improvement of heel strength, the optimization of production cost, the product design, quality control, and the development of new products. At present, some heel makers utilize the developed heel tester to judge the performance. If the strength is lower than safety standards permit, the shipment of the products will be stopped and the design of the product will be changed.