The objective of the proposed study is to produce a tool-condition monitoring (TCM) strategy that will lead to a more efficient and economical drilling tool usage. Drill-wear monitoring is an important attribute in the automatic cutting processes as it can help preventing damages of the tools and workpieces and optimizing the tool usage. This study presents the architectures of a multi-layer feed-forward neural network with back-propagation training algorithm for the monitoring of drill wear. The input features to the neural networks were extracted from the AE signals using the wavelet transform analysis. Training and testing were performed under a moderate range of cutting conditions in the dry drilling of steel plates. The results indicated that the extracted input features from AE signals to the supervised neural networks were effective for drill wear monitoring and the output of the neural networks could be utilized for the tool life management planning.