What purpose do component worksheets serve in the context of composite worksheets?

Component worksheets play a crucial role in the structure of composite worksheets. They act as the foundational elements that feed into composite worksheets, allowing for a more organized and aggregated view of data from multiple sources or areas. By compiling detailed information in component worksheets, users can effectively create higher-level composite worksheets that synthesize this information, enabling easier analysis and decision-making.

The other options highlight functions that component worksheets do not primarily serve. For instance, while summarizing performance metrics and consolidating forecasts are important tasks in data analysis, these are not the main purpose of component worksheets in the context of composite worksheets. Additionally, visualizing multiple product lines is more of a function of the composite worksheets themselves rather than the component worksheets that feed them. Therefore, the primary purpose of component worksheets is to provide the necessary data that composes the higher-level composite worksheets, which is why the answer focusing on this aspect is correct.