This only helps if there are others nearby which can efficiently help to fix the problem. In japanese culture the workers are often decades in the same company and know a lot about the processes the other workers are doing, they have a broad knowledge. In other countries this doesn't work as workers are seen as expendable and as a result only have very narrow knowledge of their specific part. When they get help of nearby workers which are not skilled in their process it will only prolong the time it takes to fix the problem so that the andon cord causes more problems than it fixes.