Attribute Schema Library
Attribute schemasafety & PPE

Safety Footwear Attributes

Safety footwear covers protective toe-cap and soft-toe work boots and shoes sold to industrial, construction, utility, food-processing and warehouse employers — through a distributor's catalog, a managed shoe program, or a shoemobile parked outside the plant. The buyer is a safety manager writing a PPE spec, or a purchasing agent filling one.

The data is hard for a structural reason: the specification is a stamp inside the boot, not a datasheet. The ASTM F2413 marking packs the standard revision, fit last, impact class, compression class and every supplemental protection (Mt, Cd, EH, SD10/35/100, PR) into three printed lines. Suppliers pass it through as one string. Distributors store it as one string. Buyers need to filter on each fact inside it.

Three standard families apply depending on where the boot ships — ASTM F2413/F2892 in the US, CSA Z195 in Canada, EN ISO 20345 in Europe — and all three were revised in ways that changed the codes, not just the thresholds. And one style in one color is 30 to 60 SKUs once sizes cross widths.

Core

Every SKU needs these. Without them the record is not a product, it is a row.

Manufacturer Part Number
identifier
804-4200

The style number is how safety managers write specs and how shoemobile approved-lists are keyed. Colorways share a style root.

Toe Cap Material
enum
Composite

First filter every buyer touches. Composite is non-metallic and lighter; alloy is lighter than steel at similar protection; steel is cheapest.

Footwear Size (US)
enum
10.5

Variant axis. Half sizes are standard in work boots; a style running 7-14 with halves is ~15 size values before width.

Footwear Width
enum
EE

Second variant axis and a hard requirement, not a preference. Grainger exposes it as its own facet (EE, 4E) because buyers filter on it.

Boot Height
number · in
6

Drives hazard fit: 6 in for general industry, 8 in for ankle support and splash, pull-on heights for foundry and welding.

Upper Material
enum
Tobacco full-grain leather

Determines chemical exposure fit and whether the boot is resoleable. Full-grain leather, PVC, rubber and nubuck behave differently.

GTIN-12 (UPC)
identifier
190851234567 (UPC-A, 12 digit)

Assigned per size/width/color, not per style. Required to list on Amazon Business and to publish through GDSN.

Differentiating

What buyers actually compare on. This is where catalogs win or lose the filter.

Outsole Compound
enum
Nitrile rubber

Nitrile takes contact heat (EN ISO 20345 HRO tests 300 C for 60 s); PU degrades above ~80 C and hydrolyses in storage; TPU sits between.

Waterproof Rating
enum
Waterproof (membrane)

Separates a sealed membrane from water-repellent treated leather. The two are not substitutes and buyers return the wrong one.

Insulation Weight
number · g
400

Cold storage and outdoor winter work specify a gram weight. 200 g, 400 g, 600 g, 800 g and 1000 g are the real steps.

Metatarsal Guard Type
enum
External

Internal and external guards both pass Mt/75, but external guards are banned as a snag hazard on some sites. Different purchase decision.

Non-Metallic Construction
boolean
true

True only when toe cap, shank, puncture plate and eyelets are all non-metallic. Required for walk-through metal detector environments.

Shank Material
enum
Composite

A steel shank defeats a non-metallic claim and adds weight. Composite and fiberglass shanks are what detector-screened sites need.

Compliance & identifiers

Standards, regulatory data, and the identifiers channels reject you for missing.

ASTM F2413 Marking (verbatim)
text
ASTM F2413-18 / M I/75 C/75 / Mt EH PR

The three lines stamped inside the boot. Keep it verbatim as the audit source of truth, then parse it into the fields below.

ASTM Standard & Revision
enum
ASTM F2413-18

F2413-11 allowed I/50 and C/50; -18 removed them and split SD into 10/35/100; -24 folds in slip resistance. Soft-toe boots are F2892.

Electrical Rating
enum
EH

EH is 18,000 V at 60 Hz, 1 min, leakage under 1.0 mA, dry. Cd is 0-500,000 ohms at 500 V. SD classes cap at 10, 35 or 100 megohms.

Puncture Resistance (PR)
boolean
true

PR devices withstand a minimum 270 lbf (1,200 N) nail penetration force. Demolition, roofing and scrap sites specify it by name.

Country of Origin
enum
United States

Drives duty, Buy American / TAA eligibility on government and utility contracts, and is a mandatory GDSN and customs field.

The fields that aren't in the schema at all

What most safety footwear catalogs are missing.

The table above is the schema most catalogs already have. These are the attributes that usually aren't in it — each one surfaced by a signal from the live market rather than by an audit of what's already there. This is what Anglera's Schema Foundry does on a real catalog, in this category.

Competitor signal
+ Decomposed ASTM protection flags

Grainger's 'ASTM Standards Met' facet lists whole strings like 'ASTM F2413 M/I/C EH' as single values. A buyer needing Mt AND EH AND PR can't express it — each combination is its own opaque option.

The EH boot that also carries a met guard never surfaces on a met-guard search. Buyers phone in to ask what the catalog already knows, or buy it elsewhere.

Supplier signal
+ ASTM standard revision year

Supplier feeds send 'Meets ASTM F2413' or 'ASTM F2413 EH' with no revision. The boot's own tongue label reads -11, -18 or -24, and those revisions grade impact and SD differently.

Plant PPE specs cite a revision. Quoting -18 stock against an -11 marking fails the safety manager's audit and the shipment comes back.

Search signal
+ Metatarsal guard type (internal vs external)

Filter rails expose metatarsal as yes/no. Buyers search 'internal met guard boots', land on a category page, and hand-check product images to tell an internal guard from a strap-on external one.

Sites with ladder cages and conveyor pinch points ban external guards as a snag hazard. Wrong guard type is a return on a fitted, worn boot.

Competitor signal
+ Whole-boot non-metallic declaration

Grainger's facet is 'Non Metallic Upper' — upper only. Nothing states whether the shank, puncture plate and eyelets are also non-metallic, and those are what a walk-through detector reacts to.

Composite-toe boots with a steel shank trip the detector at a food plant or airport ramp. The order is rejected on arrival and the program goes to a competitor.

Supplier signal
+ Outsole compound

Copy says 'slip resistant outsole' and names a tread brand — MAXWear Wedge, Vibram. The compound (nitrile, PU, TPU, rubber, PVC) sits on the manufacturer tech sheet, rarely in the catalog record.

PU soles soften on hot asphalt and hydrolyse in storage. Without compound you cannot answer the heat or chemical question and the RFQ goes unanswered.

How Schema Foundry finds these

Messy in, governed out.

The same value, spelled every way safety & PPE suppliers spell it. A filter only works once they agree.

ASTM Marking
ASTM F2413-18 M I/75 C/75 EHASTM F2413 M/I/C EHF2413-18 MI/75C/75EHMeets ASTM F2413ASTM 2413-18 M I C EH
F2413-18 | M | I/75 | C/75 | EH=true

One string is five independent facts. Split it and each becomes a filter; leave it and the whole marking is a single opaque enum.

Toe Cap Material
Comp ToeCTComposite ToeNon-Metallic ToeNano ToeFiberglass Toe
Composite

Nano Toe and Fiberglass Toe are vendor names for composite. Left raw they split one facet into six thin buckets and none looks stocked.

Footwear Width
EE2EWideWWide (EE)D/EE
EE

EE and 2E are the same width. 'Wide' is brand-relative — EE on one last, 4E on another. D/EE is a size run, not a width value.

Waterproof Rating
WPH2OWater ResistantWater RepellentWRUWPA
Waterproof (membrane)

EN ISO 20345:2022 replaced WRU with WPA (limited penetration). WR means none. 'Water resistant' is neither and must not fold in.

What buyers ask

Every one of these should be answerable from the attributes above. If it isn't, that's a gap.

  • Is it EH rated, and does the EH rating still hold once the outsole wears down?
  • Is the met guard internal or external? We have ladder cages and it can't snag.
  • Do you have this in 4E, size 15?
  • Our plant runs metal detectors — is the whole boot non-metallic, or just the toe?
  • Is this marked F2413-18 or the older -11? Our written PPE spec calls out the revision.
  • Will the outsole hold up on hot asphalt, or is it a PU sole that'll soften?
  • Static dissipative — is it SD10, SD35, or SD100? Our ESD program specifies a range.
  • Composite toe for a CSA green triangle — does that pass, or does it have to be steel?

What channels require

The same SKU, different mandatory fields per destination.

Distributor site filter rail (Grainger, Zoro)
Toe Cap MaterialFootwear WidthFootwear Size (US)Boot HeightASTM Standard & RevisionElectrical Rating
Amazon Business
GTIN-12 (UPC)Parent/child variation on Size + Width + ColorBrandCountry of OriginMain image on white backgroundASTM marking in attributes
GDSN / GS1 data pool
GTIN-14 pack hierarchyGPC brick (Footwear)GS1 US Size CodeGS1 US Color CodeCountry of OriginNet and gross weight
Shoe program / shoemobile approved list
ASTM protections decomposed (toe, EH/SD, Mt, PR)Subsidy tier priceSize and width run availabilityFit last (M/F)Non-Metallic ConstructionMetatarsal Guard Type

Safety Footwear data, in practice

What's the difference between ASTM F2412, F2413 and F2892?

F2412 is the test method standard — how a lab tests the boot. F2413 is the performance specification for footwear with a protective toe cap, and it defines the marking. F2892 is the performance specification for soft-toe protective footwear: no toe cap, but still certified for conductive (Cd), electrical hazard (EH), static dissipative (SD) and puncture resistance (PR). This matters for schema design. A soft-toe EH boot is marked ASTM F2892, not F2413. If your record has one field called 'ASTM F2413 rating', every soft-toe EH shoe either gets mis-stamped with the wrong standard or drops off the EH filter entirely.

Do we really need to store the ASTM revision year as its own field?

Yes. The revisions are not cosmetic. F2413-11 permitted I/50 and C/50 classes; F2413-18 removed them, so only I/75 and C/75 remain, and it split the single SD rating into SD10, SD35 and SD100 with different upper resistance limits. F2413-24, published June 2024, brings slip resistance into the specification by reference to ASTM F3445-24, where SR requires a coefficient of friction of at least 0.40. Plant PPE specs cite a revision. Boots are marked with the revision they were certified to, and -11 stock still circulates. 'Meets ASTM F2413' with no year is unfilterable and unauditable.

How do we model size and width without exploding the catalog?

Style plus color is the product model. Size and width are the variant axes. A style running US 7-14 with half sizes is about 15 size values; multiply by the widths offered (commonly D and EE, often B, M and 4E as well) and you get 30 to 60 variants per color. Only a few fields belong at the variant level: GTIN, size, width, and weight. The ASTM marking, toe cap material, outsole compound, upper material and shank all inherit from the style. If the marking lives at SKU level you re-key it 60 times per color, and drift between variants is guaranteed — that's how a single width ends up filtering as non-EH.

Does a composite toe satisfy CSA, or does it have to be steel?

CSA Z195 grades the toe cap by performance, not by material, so composite caps can and do carry a green triangle. The markings are: green triangle for a Grade 1 toe (125 J impact) plus a puncture-resistant sole; yellow triangle for a Grade 2 toe plus puncture-resistant sole; blue rectangle for a Grade 1 toe with no puncture plate. A white rectangle with an orange omega marks electric shock resistant footwear, tested to 18,000 V with leakage not exceeding 1 mA. CSA is a separate field from ASTM. A boot sold into both Canada and the US carries both markings, and deriving one from the other loses information.

More safety & PPE schemas

Fall Protection HarnessesHard HatsHi-Vis ApparelRespiratorsSafety GlassesSafety Gloves

Run this against your own safety footwear.

Bring the category. We'll show you which of these attributes your catalog is missing — and the ones we find that aren't on this page yet.

Book a demo