In this paper, the optimal heating pattern of the furnace is sought to reduce the unnecessary energy loss. A finite difference method was used to estimate the transient temperature field of the billet in a furnace. Heat conduction equations were used in the interior nodes of the billet, while energy balances for conduction, convection, and radiation were considered in the boundary nodes. Several heating patterns for the furnace were tested and subsequently compared each other. The results showed that the temperature in the preheating zone should be set to relatively low. The temperature distributions of the billet are quite different from each other when different heating pattern are used, even though the heating patterns have the same amount of energy consumption. It reveals that there exists an optimal heating pattern to save the energy loss.