Sono Motors (SONO.US) undergoes "Big Slimming": Cuts 12% of its workforce to streamline product team structure.

Sono Ltd. (SONO.US) announced it will cut about 12% of its workforce, or 200 employees, in an effort to streamline and focus its product team.

The California-based high-end audio equipment maker made the layoff announcement during a company-wide conference call Wednesday and said it would notify affected employees immediately.

The layoffs come weeks after the company parted ways with former CEO Patrick Spence, who left amid a failed overhaul of its mobile app, which damaged the Sonos brand and hurt sales during the rollout of major new hardware products such as its headphones.

Interim CEO Tom Conrad said in a memo to employees that the company "has gotten too much hierarchy, which makes collaboration and decision-making more difficult than necessary." As a result, the company is undergoing a restructuring, including a major overhaul of its product development team.

"We are reorganizing the product organization into functional groups for hardware, software, design, quality and operations, rather than separate business units focused on individual product categories," Conrad wrote. "Through this simpler organizational structure, cross-functional project teams will work together to improve our core experiences and launch new products."

Conrad added: "We've also let too many projects run in a half-committed state recently. We'll fix that, too."

The company said in another filing Wednesday to the Securities and Exchange Commission that the layoffs would result in $15 million to $18 million in restructuring and related costs, mostly in the current period. Sono is scheduled to report first-quarter results on Thursday. The stock has fallen 9.9% over the past year.