I presume this is a game rather than pakset issue:
For planning routes, finding industries, the list of industries is really useful (e.g. "is there a textile mill anywhere on this map...")
However, what would be really useful, is if it listed the co-ordinates of the industry next to the name. Currently it lists some numbers in brackets, but they relate to production, not location. For finding profitable /manageable routes, the distance between industries is a key factor to consider, but finding viable industrial pairs is at present a bit tricky. This would help.
Can you not use the minimap for this purpose? The industries are colour coded by type there.
Not really. The server game map is so large that its impractical to follow the red/white industrial-links on the minimap when zoomed out, because my screen (1920x1200) isn't big enough. Hovering over the tiny industrial dots precisely to get the links to show is seriously difficult (and our map is light on industry!)
At a better zoom ratio, you can't see both ends of the map at once, and you can't pan because the industrial links require mouse-over on the source industry* to show up, so if you pan to find the destination industry* off-screen, the links disappear.
Hence it seems (unless you know a better trick) that co-ordinates are the way to go (e.g. "I'm looking for a colliary west of 600 delivery to a merchant east of 5500")
*or vice versa using Ctrl+ mouseover