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Business Segment Information (Details) $ in Thousands	3 Months Ended
	Apr. 01, 2017 USD ($)	Apr. 02, 2016 USD ($)
Business Segment Information [Line Items]
Number of operating segments	2
Number of reportable segments	1
Product sales	$ 324,296	$ 307,857
Service sales	173,673	167,389
Total net sales	497,969	475,246
Waters instrument systems [Member]
Business Segment Information [Line Items]
Product sales	197,789	188,529
Chemistry [Member]
Business Segment Information [Line Items]
Product sales	87,903	84,150
TA instrument systems [Member]
Business Segment Information [Line Items]
Product sales	38,604	35,178
Waters service [Member]
Business Segment Information [Line Items]
Service sales	157,734	151,514
TA service [Member]
Business Segment Information [Line Items]
Service sales	$ 15,939	$ 15,875

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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- Definition

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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Line items represent financial concepts included in a table. These concepts are used to disclose reportable information associated with domain members defined in one or many axes to the table.

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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.

+ 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)
-URI http://asc.fasb.org/extlink&oid=63488584&loc=d3e20235-122688

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Aggregate revenue during the period from services rendered in the normal course of business, after deducting allowances and discounts.

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Reference 1: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/presentationRef
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-Name Accounting Standards Codification
-Topic 225
-SubTopic 10
-Section S99
-Paragraph 2
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