Rehana Kousar

Papers

Total Citations

135

H-Index

About

Dr. Rehana Kousar is a leading voice in the intersection of industrial robotics and crisis manufacturing. Her research focuses on the rapid reconfiguration of production lines, particularly how collaborative robots (cobots) can be deployed to address urgent supply chain failures. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Kousar produced seminal work that directly informed policy and industrial practice. Her landmark paper, "Reconfiguring and ramping-up ventilator production in the face of COVID-19: Can robots help?" (79 citations), systematically analyzed how factories could be repurposed to meet the sudden global demand for ventilators. She expanded this analysis in "Repurposing factories with robotics in the face of COVID-19" (56 citations), providing a practical framework for integrating cobots into existing manufacturing environments without extensive retooling. Together, these works have become essential references for engineers and disaster-response planners, demonstrating how agile automation can transform civilian factories into life-saving production hubs. Dr. Kousar’s contributions have reshaped how we think about manufacturing resilience, proving that robotics is not just a tool for efficiency, but a critical asset for public health and emergency response.