Supervisory Control Theory, initiated by Ramadge & Wonham in the eighties, is based on system specifications and requirements in the form of automata. This formal framework turns out to be very suitable for designing and generating software for the control of e.g. bridges and storm surge barriers. Next to an introduction into this approach, recent research results will be discussed that were pivotal in tackling such large applications for Rijkswaterstaat, including multilevel synthesis and several modeling guidelines.