Aug. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Toyota Motor Corp. is experimenting with a streamlined North American management team to react faster to market shifts as the world’s largest automaker works to rebound from its worst U.S. slump.

Akio Toyoda since becoming president in June of the company his grandfather founded has given responsibility for more regional decisions to Executive Vice President Atsushi Niimi, North American President Yoshimi Inaba and U.S. sales chief Jim Lentz, Lentz said yesterday. That includes adjusting factory output and model-line plans.

“In the past, monthly production control went through Japan; those decisions now can be made by the three of us,” Lentz told reporters yesterday at a conference in Traverse City, Michigan. As for product planning, “we’re going to be able to streamline that and make it much quicker,” he said.

U.S. sales for the Toyota City, Japan-based company fell 34 percent through July after a 15 percent drop last year as the industry struggled with its steepest decline in three decades. Toyoda, 53, aims to return the carmaker to profitability with cost reductions, new products and flexible regional operations.

Toyota this week reported a net loss for the quarter that ended June 30 of 77.8 billion yen ($816 million), smaller than analysts had estimated. North America, previously Toyota’s biggest source of profit and revenue, had the biggest drop in vehicle sales, plunging 47 percent in the three-month period.

The company has relied on the U.S. for the largest portion of its profit in recent years, and its earnings won’t fully recover until vehicle demand in the market returns to “more normal levels,” Lentz said.

Toyota’s U.S. sales unit is based in Torrance, California.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alan Ohnsman in Los Angeles at aohnsman@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: August 6, 2009 16:01 EDT