Abstract
This paper deals with a multi-objective location-routing problem (MO-LRP) and follows the idea of sectorization to simplify the solution approaches. The MO-LRP consists of sectorization, sub-sectorization, and routing sub-problems. In the sectorization sub-problem, a subset of potential distribution centres (DCs) is opened and a subset of customers is assigned to each of them. Each DC and the customers assigned to it form a sector. Afterward, in the sub-sectorization stage customers of each DC are divided into different sub-sector. Then, in the routing sub-problem, a route is determined and a vehicle is assigned to meet demands. To solve the problem, we design two approaches, which adapt the sectorization, sub-sectorization and routing sub-problems with the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) in two different manners. In the first approach, NSGA-II is used to find non-dominated solutions for all sub-problems, simultaneously. The second one is similar to the first one but it has a hierarchical structure, such that the routing sub-problem is solved with a solver for binary integer programming in MATLAB optimization toolbox after solving sectorization and sub-sectorization sub-problem with NSGA-II. Four benchmarks are used and based on a comparison between the obtained results it is shown that the first approach finds more non-dominated solutions. Therefore, it is concluded that the simultaneous approach is more effective than the hierarchical approach for the defined problem in terms of finding more non-dominated solutions. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021.

Abstract
This paper deals with multi-objective location-routing problems (MO-LRPs) and follows a sectorizationapproach, which means customers are divided into different sectors, and a distribution centre is opened for eachsector. The literature has considered objectives such as minimizing the number of opened distribution centres,the variances of compactness, distances and demands in sectors. However, the achievement of these objectivescannot guarantee the geographical separation of sectors. In this sense, and as the geographical separation ofsectors can have significant practical relevance, we propose a new objective function and solve a benchmarkof problems with the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II), which finds multiple non-dominatedsolutions. A comparison of the results shows the effectiveness of the introduced objective function, since, in thenon-dominated solutions obtained, the sectors are more geographically separated when the values of the objectivefunction improve.