Generally speaking, heat treatment is after forging. Of course, forging is to be heated, and the general forging forging temperature is generally higher than the temperature of hot processing, forging is a part forming method, to obtain parts blank; It is generally used in important parts to obtain blank. And heat treatment is to improve the mechanical properties of parts.

The heat treatment must be done after the forging, because any heat treatment prior to the forging will be invalid after the forging. Because the forging temperature has already exceeded the austenitizing temperature. Well, they are all processes that require heating and can change the mechanical properties of the raw materials. The difference is that forging is to deform the material under the action of pressure after heating and heat preservation, so as to obtain the fine blank with certain shape and density. The heat treatment is to heat the heat preservation after the workpiece to cool down at a certain cooling rate to obtain a variety of metallographic structure, does not change the appearance of the workpiece macroscopically (there are small heat treatment deformation).

Different heating temperatures and different cooling rates result in a variety of heat treatment methods. And the heat treatment temperature doesn't have to be the austenitizing temperature. But it's forged to this temperature.