One of the most overlooked processes in heat treatment of steel parts is the transfer step where parts are moved from the heating furnace to the quenching system. During an air-transfer step, the surface of a hot steel part quickly loses heat to the environment through radiation and convective forces. Arguably, the austenitizing and quenching steps have more going on metallurgically, but the transfer step sets up a thermal gradient in the part that goes into the quench step. From a modeling perspective, including the transfer step in the analysis is paramount to capturing the phase transformation timing during the quench step, which can have a significant effect on the distortion and residual stress prediction. Furthermore, the geometry of the part, or the chemistry of the steel, can increase the sensitivity the transfer step has on the final product. For an accurate heat-treatment simulation, the transfer step must be included in the analysis to capture the heat loss and provide more accurate results for distortion and residual stress.