This paper deals with the monitoring of grinding wheel wear in surface grinding process. A monitoring system, which makes use of a laser scanning micrometer, is developed to measure the circumferential shape as well as the axial profile of grinding wheel. The monitoring system is applied to surface grinding processes. The experimental results show that the developed monitoring system is useful not only for monitoring the amount of wear in grinding wheel but also for evaluation the quality of ground surface and determining proper derssing time for the grinding wheel.