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Business Segment Information (Details) $ in Thousands	3 Months Ended		9 Months Ended
	Oct. 01, 2016 USD ($)	Oct. 03, 2015 USD ($)	Oct. 01, 2016 USD ($)	Oct. 03, 2015 USD ($)
Business Segment Information [Line Items]
Number of operating segments			2
Number of reportable segments			1
Product sales	$ 349,934	$ 336,933	$ 1,017,478	$ 971,842
Service sales	176,896	163,645	521,158	483,880
Total net sales	526,830	500,578	1,538,636	1,455,722
Waters instrument systems [Member]
Business Segment Information [Line Items]
Product sales	226,296	219,196	646,733	625,276
Chemistry [Member]
Business Segment Information [Line Items]
Product sales	84,114	78,173	255,312	234,095
TA instrument systems [Member]
Business Segment Information [Line Items]
Product sales	39,524	39,564	115,433	112,471
Waters service [Member]
Business Segment Information [Line Items]
Service sales	160,503	148,206	471,792	438,104
TA service [Member]
Business Segment Information [Line Items]
Service sales	$ 16,393	$ 15,439	$ 49,366	$ 45,776

X

- Definition

Number of operating segments. An operating segment is a component of an enterprise: (a) that engages in business activities from which it may earn revenues and incur expenses (including revenues and expenses relating to transactions with other components of the same enterprise), (b) whose operating results are regularly reviewed by the enterprise's chief operating decision maker to make decisions about resources to be allocated to the segment and assess its performance, and (c) for which discrete financial information is available. An operating segment may engage in business activities for which it has yet to earn revenues, for example, start-up operations may be operating segments before earning revenues.

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Number of segments reported by the entity. A reportable segment is a component of an entity for which there is an accounting requirement to report separate financial information on that component in the entity's financial statements.

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Aggregate revenue during the period from the sale of goods in the normal course of business, after deducting returns, allowances and discounts.

+ References

Reference 1: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/presentationRef
-Publisher FASB
-Name Accounting Standards Codification
-Topic 225
-SubTopic 10
-Section S99
-Paragraph 2
-Subparagraph (SX 210.5-03.1(a))
-URI http://asc.fasb.org/extlink&oid=63488584&loc=d3e20235-122688

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Total revenue from sale of goods and services rendered during the reporting period, in the normal course of business, reduced by sales returns and allowances, and sales discounts.

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Reference 1: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/presentationRef
-Publisher FASB
-Name Accounting Standards Codification
-Topic 225
-SubTopic 10
-Section S99
-Paragraph 2
-Subparagraph (SX 210.5-03.1)
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Reference 1: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/presentationRef
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-Name Accounting Standards Codification
-Topic 225
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