As machining processes become one of the most common kinds of manufacturing processes in industry, it becomes imperative to optimize cutting parameters in order to reduce machining times and increase surface quality. This is specially true when piece geometry demands high rates of material removal. In previous work by the authors, piezoelectric dynamometers have been used to find cutting forces which in turn allows finding of optimal cutting parameters. Although the methodology reported has proved to be very effective, its application in the production line has not been straightforward as the use of a piezoelectric dynamometer requires an expensive setup and skilled technicians. The objective of this work is to propose and validate an experimental methodology that allows the determination of optimal cutting parameters for material-tool pairs by measuring the electrical power consumed by the machine-tool during cutting. This latter approach is more economical and easy to apply in the manufacturing line. Optimized parameters obtained through this methodology yield improvements up to more than twice on removal rates compared to those recommended by tool suppliers for the same process requirements.